The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
I'm not religious so again, take my opinion on it with a grain of salt.
On religion, people value it because it gives them a sense of place in the world. People are scared of what they don't know and while science is still bridging the gap, religion tells everyone how exactly we came to be and why we are here. It gives a simple, convenient answer. People don't want to throw that away because having a purpose is chief in most people's lives. I will agree that I think we'd be better off without religion but many would argue against it, saying that it gives a sense of morality, a clear social structure, explanations of our creation, etc..
As for love, I'm a bit confused by your wording on the paragraph. Why do you think we should reject it? Why is love so tyrannical? I understand that marriage and relationships are not for everyone but you feel love outside of those things that you have elaborated on above.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
//on topic: Love, as irrational as you may perceive it, stems from chemical reactions in the brain.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Holy texts are there evidence.
Holy texts are not just holy because "god said so" they're holy because they were written a long time ago by the people god supposedly talked to.
Believers see it as a historical artifact whose writings are real. Some believers read them literally, some try to read it within a historical context, others simply read it to look for what's relevant to them. But they all read it believing someone who saw it actually happen wrote it or told someone to write it.
To them, its a witness testimony.
Sure *you* don't believe the evidence is valid; but its not arbitrarily chosen if the people believe that the evidence is legit.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
somebody's in philosophy 101!
Yeah, they're pretty bad examples. I'll definitely agree on that.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Do you really think that people believing your lie makes their belief on said lie arbitrary? If they believe your lie they treat it as truth--heck, you even point to them who god is (the lollipop) so not only do they have a witness telling them who god is, they actually "saw" god himself with their own two eyes.
They then live their lives *knowing* that God is a lollipop. That's not arbitrary.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Holy texts are there evidence.
Holy texts are not just holy because "god said so" they're holy because they were written a long time ago by the people god supposedly talked to.
Believers see it as a historical artifact whose writings are real. Some believers read them literally, some try to read it within a historical context, others simply read it to look for what's relevant to them. But they all read it believing someone who saw it actually happen wrote it or told someone to write it.
To them, its a witness testimony.
Sure *you* don't believe the evidence is valid; but its not arbitrarily chosen if the people believe that the evidence is legit.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
On July 02 2013 08:08 Maxhster wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
somebody's in philosophy 101!
Yeah, they're pretty bad examples. I'll definitely agree on that.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Do you really think that people believing your lie makes their belief on said lie arbitrary? If they believe your lie they treat it as truth--heck, you even point to them who god is (the lollipop) so not only do they have a witness telling them who god is, they actually "saw" god himself with their own two eyes.
They then live their lives *knowing* that God is a lollipop. That's not arbitrary.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Well, one "definition" of religion (one of many, none of which really do religion justice) is the structured or organized system of beliefs. In a broad sense, religion is far less fictional than other social constructs. Take the New Testament, for example. Even the most diehard, internet warrior, pimply-teen-in-basement-posting-on-r/atheism can't really deny that the New Testament, taken at face value, is a good thing. The message is not complex nor complicated. It's the Golden Rule + some cute stories that, all together, just mean be a nice guy, a good neighbor, and don't be an asshole and good things will happen. Ignore the acts of divine intervention and the miracles, and the NT is just a text that says be nice to people. Can't really fault that.
If the core, fundamental values of something like Christianity are based on the issue of simply "be a good person" (yes, we all know that's not how Christianity has worked exactly in history, but that's irrelevant), does that make it fictional? Fictional in what sense? Arbitrary, perhaps? Sure. But it's a damn good arbitrary, isn't it?
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Well, one "definition" of religion (one of many, none of which really do religion justice) is the structured or organized system of beliefs. In a broad sense, religion is far less fictional than other social constructs. Take the New Testament, for example. Even the most diehard, internet warrior, pimply-teen-in-basement-posting-on-r/atheism can't really deny that the New Testament, taken at face value, is a good thing. The message is not complex nor complicated. It's the Golden Rule + some cute stories that, all together, just mean be a nice guy, a good neighbor, and don't be an asshole and good things will happen. Ignore the acts of divine intervention and the miracles, and the NT is just a text that says be nice to people. Can't really fault that.
If the core, fundamental values of something like Christianity are based on the issue of simply "be a good person" (yes, we all know that's not how Christianity has worked exactly in history, but that's irrelevant), does that make it fictional? Fictional in what sense? Arbitrary, perhaps? Sure. But it's a damn good arbitrary, isn't it?
i'm not sure what you are trying to argue
are you trying to say that religion (the set of beliefs about certain things, like moses parting the sea, happening - not the morals that they may or may not be based on) is fact? if so, please prove it
are you trying to say that the morals that religions may or may not be based on are not fictional? if so i agree with you to an extent, but that is not what OP (or I) am talking about
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Holy texts are there evidence.
Holy texts are not just holy because "god said so" they're holy because they were written a long time ago by the people god supposedly talked to.
Believers see it as a historical artifact whose writings are real. Some believers read them literally, some try to read it within a historical context, others simply read it to look for what's relevant to them. But they all read it believing someone who saw it actually happen wrote it or told someone to write it.
To them, its a witness testimony.
Sure *you* don't believe the evidence is valid; but its not arbitrarily chosen if the people believe that the evidence is legit.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
On July 02 2013 08:08 Maxhster wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
somebody's in philosophy 101!
Yeah, they're pretty bad examples. I'll definitely agree on that.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Do you really think that people believing your lie makes their belief on said lie arbitrary? If they believe your lie they treat it as truth--heck, you even point to them who god is (the lollipop) so not only do they have a witness telling them who god is, they actually "saw" god himself with their own two eyes.
They then live their lives *knowing* that God is a lollipop. That's not arbitrary.
i recommend "edit"
I will bear my tiping skarz like a champp no phear!
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Holy texts are there evidence.
Holy texts are not just holy because "god said so" they're holy because they were written a long time ago by the people god supposedly talked to.
Believers see it as a historical artifact whose writings are real. Some believers read them literally, some try to read it within a historical context, others simply read it to look for what's relevant to them. But they all read it believing someone who saw it actually happen wrote it or told someone to write it.
To them, its a witness testimony.
Sure *you* don't believe the evidence is valid; but its not arbitrarily chosen if the people believe that the evidence is legit.
On July 02 2013 08:13 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:09 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:06 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:01 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
On July 02 2013 08:08 Maxhster wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
somebody's in philosophy 101!
Yeah, they're pretty bad examples. I'll definitely agree on that.
On July 02 2013 08:15 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:06 ElvisWayCool wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:57 politik wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Do you really think that people believing your lie makes their belief on said lie arbitrary? If they believe your lie they treat it as truth--heck, you even point to them who god is (the lollipop) so not only do they have a witness telling them who god is, they actually "saw" god himself with their own two eyes.
They then live their lives *knowing* that God is a lollipop. That's not arbitrary.
i recommend "edit"
I will bear my tiping skarz like a champp no phear!
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
thats not how science nor life works my friend
you are misunderstanding his argument
he is not arguing that god is real or that religion is true, he is arguing that the concept of religion being an "arbitrary construct" is flawed because by definition, religion is not an "arbitrary construct"
(it's an argument of semantics, and OP's entire post seems based on his misunderstanding of the words he is using)
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
thats not how science nor life works my friend
How so?
People who believe religious texts see those texts as evidence written by people who saw the real deal. You might disagree with the evidence, but that doesn't mean that the people who do believe it do so arbitrarily.
They might be misguided.
They might be tricked.
But arbitrarily choosing what you believe in? That's not how believing things works. I don't "choose" to believe in gravity for much the same reason I don't "choose" to believe the world is round. Evidence to me shows that gravity is real and that the world is round. If evidence comes up later stating otherwise, I might or might not believe it depending on how much I trust said evidence.
The same is true for zealots and their texts. They have not found counter-arguments that are strong enough to prove their document wrong.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
thats not how science nor life works my friend
I think Magpie's argument is not that the evidence on which religions are based is true, but that said religions' followers believe it to be true, because they take it to be legitimate evidence. So in this sense, it's not arbitrary, for them that is valid evidence and they base their belief on it. Whether or not it is actually true, outside of anyone's belief, that's a different matter entirely...
On July 02 2013 08:57 teddyoojo wrote: ok, i misunderstood. but if you believe something to be evidence, does it turn into evidence?
how accurate something is does define it as evidence. If I believe in gravity, but my evidence is that grass grows upward--my evidence would be wrong but it still is "evidence."
So you're saying that we create religion as a way to explain things we don't understand, as an artificial construct.
But I'm a bit confused as to how love is an artificial construct that we cling to as a way of supporting us somehow.
I think, for the sake of argument, we can agree with the hypothetical idea that religion was created mainly as a means to explain the world around us.
But love wasn't created as an artificial construct. It is a natural, primordial feeling or bond that people develop between each other. The need to mate is encoded into our genes and our need to procreate to ensure the survival of the species, which is probably why the feeling of love is so strong, as it leads to that mating process.
So I really don't think you're going to be able to make it disappear somehow, just as if it were an idea of God or a set of ideas written down in a holy text.
Now, love can be formalized into a bonding ritual like marriage (and other forms); such rituals are definitely artificial constructs; i.e. the whole concept of monogamy and lifelong commitment to one woman only. You can certainly make the claim that those might be deconstructed. But everything should be deconstructed for a reason. Religion has very clear and obvious reasons for being dismantled if we assume the empiricist's perspective is correct. You would have to make a case against monogamy; show how it is harmful to all of society. I doubt you can really do this; in the end I think we should allow different "formal" relationships between people depending on what they like. Our goal should be to maximize freedom as it produces the most good.
If you really think about, there is actually very little in human society that is *completely* arbitrary. Emotions are chemical reactions in your brain. Most Religion is based on eyewitness testimonies that get passed down from generation to generation (and heavily distorted, depending on who you ask). Hell, even our number system isn't arbitrary (we have ten fingers).
Edit: So I guess, OP, a more constructive way of going about things is not asking why we do "arbitrary" things, but rather looking into the history and motives behind a lot of human behavior and thinking of ways to improve. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
ITT: People with fedoras talking about words and concepts they don't understand. Take it back to reddit, I'm sure they value cunning teen freethinkers over there.
I'm going to give the poorly thought out and constructed op a pass and actually give him a straight answer. I think it has been deconstructed enough.
We know that love is driven by chemicals and we are entirely aware of it. Being completely aware of it does not make us not-human (aka under the influence) or want to shun these generally favored chemicals. We like being in love. Our decision making, our very thinking is completely influenced by these chemicals. It is no wonder we don't rationalize it into pure logic.
Now contract this with addiction. We realize it is our brain chemistry craving things. Same story here, but our rational side even under the influence of addiction can make logical decisions (or not).
I find it odd that religious evidence is still just based on hear-say. There's no evidence that God actually spoke to Moses other than Moses saying so.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
Plato - The Symposium Kierkegaard - Seducer's Diary
Just two great sources for exploring the human construct of 'love'. Perhaps, it is something we never fully achieve, but always strive after, like "good health" or "democracy". In this case, it is something that we are constantly developing ourselves around and re-examining ourselves 'in light of'. Love, then, may be something that propels us forward, to keep on yearning, some higher purpose which is always set beyond the one that we are actually engaged in...for instance, writing a book dedicated to a loved one after they pass away--the immediate goal might be the fulfillment of the book, but the real love that drove project can never be reduced to merely 'writing a book' or even 'honoring the memory of...' The real purpose, then, is always just outside of reach, beyond the lover.
As far as 'marriage' goes, again Kierkegaard is interesting for that topic...he backed out of his own engagement and wrote extensively about how marriage often was the 'end to love' because it set something concrete, after the marriage there was nothing left to strive for....it caused lovers to settle and get comfortable rather than to continue growing and striving.
On July 02 2013 09:21 SnipedSoul wrote: I find it odd that religious evidence is still just based on hear-say. There's no evidence that God actually spoke to Moses other than Moses saying so.
All religious evidence is necessarily hear-say. Faith is based on by-passing rationality, that is why it is a 'leap'. Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction? Remember the beginning scene when Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta are fired at by the man with the "hand cannon"? If not, it is on youtube...the point being, they both witnessed the same event, one accepted the miracle, the other did not....one had faith, the other did not. Faith requires you to believe in it in order to witness some phenomenon, or event, as a miracle, without faith there is no miracle....there is always some other explanation, even if it is beyond what anyone can explain.
'for those who have faith, no proof is needed...for those who lack faith, no proof is possible'
An event can be interpreted as a miracle at any time for a person who believes. Example: The birth of a child, life itself, can both be miracles by one who believes that God is responsible for all life.
On July 02 2013 09:38 scaban84 wrote: Love is biological. Not a social construct. Marriage is a social construct
You are confusing "objective" science with subjective experience. Yes, we can map the biological processes that result in the sensation experienced when being with a loved one, but that tells us nothing about experiencing love. Yes, love can be talked about in this sterile way, but it immediately becomes boring and removed from everyday life.
Besides, a more classic definition of 'love' does not only include that elevated serotonin level induced horny bedside episodes of carnal relationships...but rather one can 'love' one's neighbor or love one's country or love a ruler or love Jesus / some other deity (all of these social construction of love that makes no reference to the scientific love of brain scans and chemical / biological processes.)
Edit: Besides, even if you do look at love entirely as a biological process, then you are still saying an awful lot about the values of yourself and your culture. You have given science (itself a human construct) a privileged domain and have accepted the scientific view and language (language, also a human construct). In other words, you describe the social values of a highly scientific age that would prefer to explain love in terms of biological processes rather than through the subjective experience of the lover ie. in terms of passion and striving or acceptance, security, affection, companionship, commitment and stability, etc.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
thats not how science nor life works my friend
you are misunderstanding his argument
he is not arguing that god is real or that religion is true, he is arguing that the concept of religion being an "arbitrary construct" is flawed because by definition, religion is not an "arbitrary construct"
(it's an argument of semantics, and OP's entire post seems based on his misunderstanding of the words he is using)
Yup you figured it out. Arguing about semantics will get annoying really fast. The OP would have to be rewritten to make this go away.
Let's pick a biased sample of people who have shown a tendency to commit to a relationship to demonstrate that, when exposed to a hormone that would make them sexually receptive, they will drop all their social conditioning and dive upon the nearest cute girl.
Oh, huh, it didn't happen... Guess this hormone must mind control people into committed relationships into an opposite effect to its normal one by itself.
Have not psychologists heard of occam's razor? does it not make more sense that this hormone would trigger effects that in a person without commitments would make them receptive, but in a person with commitments would make them more wary? Was this accounted for? Twenty bucks on no...
You have to be stupidly careful about trusting studies like these. They're mostly scientific wish fulfillment, not strong evidence for what the researchers are suggesting they might explain.
Let's pick a biased sample of people who have shown a tendency to commit to a relationship to demonstrate that, when exposed to a hormone that would make them sexually receptive, they will drop all their social conditioning and dive upon the nearest cute girl.
Oh, huh, it didn't happen... Guess this hormone must mind control people into committed relationships into an opposite effect to its normal one by itself.
Have not psychologists heard of occam's razor? does it not make more sense that this hormone would trigger effects that in a person without commitments would make them receptive, but in a person with commitments would make them more wary? Was this accounted for? Twenty bucks on no...
You have to be stupidly careful about trusting studies like these. They're mostly scientific wish fulfillment, not strong evidence for what the researchers are suggesting they might explain.
Maybe you should look at the study. I saw no such problems in it. It more seems like you are projecting issues into it that are not there.
Many of the smartest and greatest people in history was uninterested in love. I fully believe there is something there.
Love is a biological way for humans to reproduce and take care of their family. It's still impossible for most of us to resist, even if we know this fact. Its firmly rooted into our brains.
On July 02 2013 10:29 MountainDewJunkie wrote: Where the hell do these topics keep coming from?
my theory is that every quarter a new generation of TL (probably the entire internet, but TL is my sample) enters philosophy 101 and wants to talk up and show off their newfound wisdom. this is followed by them making a thread about something they talked about in class.
You believe there's something so inherently flawed to all "arbitrary human constructs" that we must attempt to abandon them for the sake of abandoning them?
I don't find the "arbitrarity" of a construct to be some sort of fundamental error. I can't imagine what sort of world you imagine living in where we abandon all "arbitrary human constructs." Perhaps it would be a better plan for you to lay out your arbitrary viewpoint on the arbitrary specifics of the arbitrary concept of love and then we can arbitrarily determine whether we'll arbitrarily abandon it or not. I think that's usually how the world functions. Of course though it only functions that way arbitrarily so who am I to arbitrarily tell you to follow societies arbitrarily chosen means of persuasion? Perhaps your arbitrarily chosen method is arbitrarily better.
Have a nice day (this is merely an arbitrarily chosen closing).
Well with all this hostility we've probably made OP feel like shit. Congratulations!
In response to the OP all I have to say is that there isn't really a greater purpose or anything at all to accomplish as a race in this universe and all we can do is have fun with what we have in our infinitesimally short and meaningless lives. Love, religion, science, ect. none of it is a distraction from any true purpose because there isn't one. These things are all we'll ever have and will only matter as much as we want them to.
On the other side of the coin, we can make them mean everything to us and pursue them for our whole lives. When it works out it is a truly beautiful thing and the people that are successful in their pursuit are the ones that live life to the fullest and are the ones that are truly happy. A select few get to be remembered for their lives and accomplishments for as long as humanity considers them relevant. When it comes down to it that's the single greatest thing anyone can ever do and the closest we'll ever come to having a true goal in life. TLDR + Show Spoiler +
like it or not having fun is the meaning of existence
EDIT: This guy is pretty much right despite his annoying, excessive, and sarcastic use of the word arbitrary.
You believe there's something so inherently flawed to all "arbitrary human constructs" that we must attempt to abandon them for the sake of abandoning them?
I don't find the "arbitrarity" of a construct to be some sort of fundamental error. I can't imagine what sort of world you imagine living in where we abandon all "arbitrary human constructs." Perhaps it would be a better plan for you to lay out your arbitrary viewpoint on the arbitrary specifics of the arbitrary concept of love and then we can arbitrarily determine whether we'll arbitrarily abandon it or not. I think that's usually how the world functions. Of course though it only functions that way arbitrarily so who am I to arbitrarily tell you to follow societies arbitrarily chosen means of persuasion? Perhaps your arbitrarily chosen method is arbitrarily better.
Have a nice day (this is merely an arbitrarily chosen closing).
"Trust, companionship, friendship, communication" are mere socially reinforced arbitrary constructs as well. So are our notions of good and evil, right and wrong. To even assert that one outcome is preferable to another (as this thread does) is to fall back upon on the arbitrarily constructed notion of good. Hopefully the irony is apparent.
Any human invention, whether an abstract idea such as god/love or a social convention like LTRs, should definitely be examined from time to time to see whether it still serves a useful function. However, before haphazardly tossing aside thousand year old traditions we should probably require a better argument than "love = monogamy = bad bro, cause yknow like, it just IS."
On July 02 2013 14:10 Zahir wrote: "Trust, companionship, friendship, communication" are mere socially reinforced arbitrary constructs as well. So are our notions of good and evil, right and wrong. To even assert that one outcome is preferable to another (as this thread does) is to fall back upon on the arbitrarily constructed notion of good. Hopefully the irony is apparent.
Any human invention, whether an abstract idea such as god/love or a social convention like LTRs, should definitely be examined from time to time to see whether it still serves a useful function. However, before haphazardly tossing aside thousand year old traditions we should probably require a better argument than "love = monogamy = bad bro, cause yknow like, it just IS."
Good and evil are pretty close to arbitrary constructs--although evolution suggests it came about in order to create a collective/societal mindset, but lets pretend scientists are stupid for the same of your argument.
Good/Evil being right or wrong could possibly be an arbitrary construct; being that a moral relativist sees all things as merely a sliding scale of comparative qualitative value judgements.
But why would you say that Love/God is an abstract idea?
People feel attachments to each other. These attachments are linked to chemical and hormonal processes in the human body--all of them measurable to a degree.
Religion might hinge on faulty evidence--but people believe the works are recordings of empirical data. It's only "abstract" to people who don't accept the writings as good evidence. But whether one thinks the testimonies of the bible are accurate or inaccurate, it's still a construct that is accepted or rejected based on evidence.
Be that as in may--I don't think the OP actually wanted to discuss "Arbitrary Constructs" as much as he wanted to discuss "science" vs "non-science" while assuming that emotions = non-science.
Fair enough, but I still don't think there's a way to make arguments about whether we "should" do away with the notion of love, without making a very unscientific leap in judgement. There's no such thing as a scientific way of life, or a relationship that falls in line with scientific beliefs, or whatever. TED philosophy series hogwash aside.
I dunno man, it feels obvious to me that science and morality have nothing to do with one another. Two completely separate fields. Yet every so often we get one of these threads where the OP is all "Hey guys i woke up with this great idea, lets take all of philosophy, culture and tradition and replace it with science = automatic utopia!!!!!!!" I guess because being 'in favor' of science is popular on the internet...
I guess he takes it on faith that knowledge is destined to free us all from the boogeyman of social constructs. Like we're destined to keep on becoming more intelligent and reject false ideas along the way. That none of them can stand in the face of this inevitable progress! The same people that believe in something supernatural, that have emotions, that have ambitions ... they're part of this collective intelligence. As much as you have conviction in the outdating of everything you call a social construct, I don't think everyone will sign on to your technocracy saying which is a construct and which is valuable.
I do think you have more faith than some professedly religious people I've met. I mean it's not in something invisible from another planet, but you're taking quite a few leaps here.
Love is not a social construct. Marriage, monogamy and family are social constructs. The feelings of love that you feel when you see a newborn child or a puppy are not learned - they are instinctive. By the same token, a dog's love for its master arises instinctually. A dog is not bound by the rules or constraints of human society. Yet it exhibits similar emotions as a human being, indicating that the act of loving is not a learned one, and has has evolutionary roots.
our chemistry and electricity understand righteousness. (or, a material based righteousness depending on what side you're on). righteousness + unknown/inexplicable created faith; add to that reason and you have religion. faith will always exist, religion will just change it's form with time.
oh, and stop calling it love, it's bonding; love sounds to pompous, as if it has a mind of it's own.
On a side note, religion has other purposes which are still relevant even to this day aside from the aspect of -"adequately explain natural and social phenomena"-, which was never really the point of religion to begin with anyways, nor should it have been.
Related to what you're asking about though, the "just-world hypothesis" is probably bigger and more widespread than either religion or love.
However, I'd be reluctant to call these human constructs "arbitrary".
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
Love is not an arbitrary human concept or social construct though. Love does not come from the ratio, it is a feeling and not an idea. Animals, at least some of the mamals, do have love as well. There are manny anecdotical storys about this. You can not compare it to religion imo (wich indeed is a construct of the brain), animals do not have religions. Love and religion come from 2 different parts of the brain, religion comes from the neo cortex and love comes from the limbic system.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
Love is not an arbitrary human concept or social construct though. Love does not come from the ratio, it is a feeling and not an idea. Animals, at least some of the mamals, do have love as well. There are manny anecdotical storys about this. You can not compare it to religion imo (wich indeed is a construct of the brain), animals do not have religions. Love and religion come from 2 different parts of the brain, religion comes from the neo cortex and love comes from the limbic system.
He's probably referring to the abstract concept of "true love" or "one true love", which is in fact an idea that has been popularly portrayed in all sorts of film, television, and literature for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
This sort of love is most likely a human construct just like religion.
I don't really have any clue what you mean when you say "religion comes from X part of the brain and love from Y". That's an extremely vague statement and nonsensical in its current form.
Well i tried to clarify it a bit, religion originates from the neo cortex and love originates from the limbic system. These 2 systems function more or less independant from eachoter. Thats why for example you can not in anny way rationalise (ratio is in the cortex) away the hurt you feel when you have lost a loved one, (while you can rationalise away the believe in a god, just try thoose things for yourself) and it is also an explanation why sometimes people love someone while all their ratio tells them it is a bad man or women to love.
I understand what you say about the "one true love" thing and i agree that might indeed be a concept and a construct popularised by movies and literature.I am talking purely about the feeling "love" wich is the origin of the literature and movies about love. People trying to make sense of the feeling of love by using their ratio but imo this is doomed to fail because they come from 2 more or less independant parts of the brain. It is like trying to rationalise away pain and (physical) pleasure.(wich comes from a structure of the brain even deeper and older then the limbic system). Love is something wich lies between the ratio and the physical experiences of pain and pleasure. Can understand it might sound a bit vague, i can not realy explain it better though or i would have to go into details about how the brain is structured and how it evolved.
LaSt)ChAnCe United States. July 02 2013 08:01. Posts 2145
See now that someone basicly already said this in less words then i did lol. And i now see you also explained in a later post where these threads come from
also, if one has some type of emotional impairment (ex: the lack of guilt) or some sort of psychopathy, he won't feel any of the above. he will have to learn 'love' but he'll still have bonding.
love is reasoned bonding. religion is reasoned faith.
On July 02 2013 17:56 Rassy wrote: Well i tried to clarify it a bit, religion originates from the neo cortex and love originates from the limbic system. These 2 systems function more or less independant from eachoter. Thats why for example you can not in anny way rationalise (ratio is in the cortex) away the hurt you feel when you have lost a loved one, (while you can rationalise away the believe in a god, just try thoose things for yourself) and it is also an explanation why sometimes people love someone while all their ratio tells them it is a bad man or women to love.
I understand what you say about the "one true love" thing and i agree that might indeed be a concept and a construct popularised by movies and literature.I am talking purely about the feeling "love" wich is the origin of the literature and movies about love. People trying to make sense of the feeling of love by using their ratio but imo this is doomed to fail because they come from 2 more or less independant parts of the brain. It is like trying to rationalise away pain and (physical) pleasure.(wich comes from a structure of the brain even deeper and older then the limbic system). Love is something wich lies between the ratio and the physical experiences of pain and pleasure. Can understand it might sound a bit vague, i can not realy explain it better though or i would have to go into details about how the brain is structured and how it evolved.
LaSt)ChAnCe United States. July 02 2013 08:01. Posts 2145
See now that someone basicly already said this in less words then i did lol. And i now see you also explained in a later post where these threads come from
been watching these threads pop up every 3-4 months since 2003.. you eventually start to see trends
Religion, as a general concept, is not arbitrary. Specific religions are. Love is not arbitrary. My reasoning:
If everyone in the world forgot about love, the concept would spring up again. It's biological, you don't need to be taught about love to know it.
If everyone forgot all religions, religions would probably spring up again, it's part of the human psyche. However, the exact religions probably would not, because there's no reason to believe in one religion over another unless you're affected by your upbringing, your culture etc.
On July 02 2013 22:30 Tobberoth wrote: Religion, as a general concept, is not arbitrary. Specific religions are. Love is not arbitrary. My reasoning:
If everyone in the world forgot about love, the concept would spring up again. It's biological, you don't need to be taught about love to know it.
If everyone forgot all religions, religions would probably spring up again, it's part of the human psyche. However, the exact religions probably would not, because there's no reason to believe in one religion over another unless you're affected by your upbringing, your culture etc.
Keep in mind religion was founded on the unknown and at the times it was founded, people were fascinated by lightnings and other natural phenomena because they could not explain them.
Your idea brought up an interesting point, what kind of religion would today's world come up with?
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Holy texts are there evidence.
Holy texts are not just holy because "god said so" they're holy because they were written a long time ago by the people god supposedly talked to.
Believers see it as a historical artifact whose writings are real. Some believers read them literally, some try to read it within a historical context, others simply read it to look for what's relevant to them. But they all read it believing someone who saw it actually happen wrote it or told someone to write it.
To them, its a witness testimony.
Sure *you* don't believe the evidence is valid; but its not arbitrarily chosen if the people believe that the evidence is legit.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
On July 02 2013 08:08 Maxhster wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
somebody's in philosophy 101!
Yeah, they're pretty bad examples. I'll definitely agree on that.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Do you really think that people believing your lie makes their belief on said lie arbitrary? If they believe your lie they treat it as truth--heck, you even point to them who god is (the lollipop) so not only do they have a witness telling them who god is, they actually "saw" god himself with their own two eyes.
They then live their lives *knowing* that God is a lollipop. That's not arbitrary.
i recommend "edit"
Take each quote out of context and it'll seem that way won't it?
I recommend "reread"
Edit: being honest and leaving what I originally said. I did what I preached and saw that I should do what you preached :facepalm:
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
"tyranny of love"?
Really?
First off, "arbitrary construct" is such a loaded term. You can do the philosophical waltz and throw almost everything into that category.
Second, what "tyranny"? All of those concepts you mentioned (dating/marriage/relationships) have legitimate societal and evolutionary purposes that are useful not only for how our society currently works, but how our brain works. Love is an actual emotion that we feel. Trying to label it an "arbitrary construct" sounds kind of childish and spiteful.
I have a question... What's wrong with arbitrary constructs?
In my opinion, the OP seems to contradict itself a little. It starts off saying that it's a good thing that human continue to progress intellectually by adopting new models and rejecting older, partially or totally incorrect ones. Then it says that religion is an arbitrary construct that has a great influence on humans and that we should question its value. I think that first of all, religion itself is not the issue. It's the people that use religion, or the institutions (i.e. the Church) that "abuse" and "influence" human relations by acting in the name of the religion. Religion itself, at the very core, is more philosophical than practical, just imagine any religion without any rituals or ceremonies or rules or some other superstition.
Now, the reason I find this is contradictory is because I feel that the OP fails to see the good side of religion. Humans have built great monuments, such as the gigantic pyramids and extremely tall cathedrals in the name of religion; that in itself is great progress in terms of architectural design skill (that shit has to stand up!), which implies mathematical knowledge, and in some cases (Stonehenge, Mesoamerican pyramids, and much more examples), astronomical knowledge. This is the progress the OP is talking about and that the OP is promoting, yet the OP is saying that we should question the very means of reaching that progress.
The third paragraph about love is just as contradictory. The OP even explicitly says that people have done extreme things just for love. That includes invent machines, build great buildings, etc... What the OP calls the "tyranny of love" is sometimes a good thing as it pushes humans to their limits, sometimes scientific and/or philosophical, and contributes to the progress the OP was talking about in the opening paragraph!
I'd just like to note that religion and love are not the same thing and that there are many other arbitrary constructs that can sometimes bring progress to humankind as well, I'm just staying in context. Actually, I'm not even sure that love can be considered arbitrary, it's really the paradigms and the relationship "protocols" that are arbitrary.
Now for my opinion. I'll assume that I only read the last 2 questions of the OP and assume no contradiction. Arbitrary construction is inescapable. Everything humans do is arbitrary to some extent. Try to find "empirical" behaviour in a person; there's literally always some arbitrary factor to a person's being. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being arbitrary because as I illustrated in the few paragraphs above, arbitrary behaviour can lead to progress (and in fact, to continue with my logic, since arbitrary construct is inescapable, I can say that all progress is thanks to one form of arbitrary construct or another). It's just really ironic that the OP perceives the arbitrary constructs that brought humans to the progress level that they are at today as hindering progress.
On July 02 2013 22:30 Tobberoth wrote: Religion, as a general concept, is not arbitrary. Specific religions are. Love is not arbitrary. My reasoning:
If everyone in the world forgot about love, the concept would spring up again. It's biological, you don't need to be taught about love to know it.
If everyone forgot all religions, religions would probably spring up again, it's part of the human psyche. However, the exact religions probably would not, because there's no reason to believe in one religion over another unless you're affected by your upbringing, your culture etc.
Keep in mind religion was founded on the unknown and at the times it was founded, people were fascinated by lightnings and other natural phenomena because they could not explain them.
Your idea brought up an interesting point, what kind of religion would today's world come up with?
Am also not so sure that religion would spring up again seeing the advances we made in science, i am kinda convinced it wont besides in cultures wich have limited scientific knowledge. In europe religion seems to be deminishing, less and less people go to churches and the younger people do not seem to be interested in religion at all besides for the social aspects. I know religion is still quiet strong in other parts of the world like america, the muslim world and also the eastern world but i do wonder if the believe in a god is still as strong there as it used to be, and if religion is not used as a way to give yourself a place and identity in society instead, rather then truly believing in what the religion preaches. People will probably still make groups and organisations who have similar livestyles and phylosophys, but i truly doubt that the believe in an almighty god and godly laws would spring up again on a similar scale as it is now, at least not in europe.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Holy texts are there evidence.
Holy texts are not just holy because "god said so" they're holy because they were written a long time ago by the people god supposedly talked to.
Believers see it as a historical artifact whose writings are real. Some believers read them literally, some try to read it within a historical context, others simply read it to look for what's relevant to them. But they all read it believing someone who saw it actually happen wrote it or told someone to write it.
To them, its a witness testimony.
Sure *you* don't believe the evidence is valid; but its not arbitrarily chosen if the people believe that the evidence is legit.
On July 02 2013 08:13 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:09 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:06 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:01 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
i think you misunderstand
love is a word we use to describe a set of emotions and feelings (hormonal,chemical, and electrical things)
religion is a word used to describe a set of (mostly) fictional beliefs (imaginary things)
edit - i can't say for certain that all religious beliefs are fictional, regardless of what i personally think, so i will say "mostly" fictional
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
i don't care to argue the semantics of it (though i agree with you)
i just think OP's examples are bad (or he just is trying to find a way to hate on the idea of love due to teenage angst {my guess})
On July 02 2013 08:08 Maxhster wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a truth and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
At its core, its the least arbitrary of your supposed arbitrary constructs. Being that the center of all religions is the passing down of history, and the sharing of a documented event.
You thinking the witness or the media as being invalid does not change that its simply the sharing of (usually) old information.
the truth? do you know anything about what the truth is? There is no truth. the truth is only a concept that is available in relation to something else. One universal truth can only be a Dogma, and that is what religion is based upon.
somebody's in philosophy 101!
Yeah, they're pretty bad examples. I'll definitely agree on that.
On July 02 2013 08:15 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:06 ElvisWayCool wrote:
On July 02 2013 08:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:57 politik wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
It's taking an argument and structuring your viewpoint on it. There's no evidence...
EDIT: That's like me saying a lollypop is my god, which is arbitrary, and then someone believing me and it all of a sudden not being arbitrary.
People can feel love, they can't feel religion. So I say love isn't arbitrary, it's an actual phenomenon.
Do you really think that people believing your lie makes their belief on said lie arbitrary? If they believe your lie they treat it as truth--heck, you even point to them who god is (the lollipop) so not only do they have a witness telling them who god is, they actually "saw" god himself with their own two eyes.
They then live their lives *knowing* that God is a lollipop. That's not arbitrary.
i recommend "edit"
Take each quote out of context and it'll seem that way won't it?
I recommend "reread"
Edit: being honest and leaving what I originally said. I did what I preached and saw that I should do what you preached :facepalm:
haha it's alright.. i could have put a little more clarification in there
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
With the exception of maybe communication, the rest are all arbitrary constructs. Whats to say they are better than love?
More importantly, I think you have the chain of causality flipped around. Love, from a cynical(I would argue realistic, but thats me) perspective is an emergent behaviour, from the interactions of various other behaviours that arise as evolutionary adaptations to procreation, child rearing, group dynamics, and other behaviours associated with a social animals.
We didn't arbitrarily invent love, we just gave an emergent behaviour(or a collection of emergent behaviours) an arbitrary name.
I value most of these arbitrary thoughts, traditions, beliefs etc... (if they aren't too retarded like religions) because if I don't I'm basically excluding myself from everyone but also because it's a part of me / my personality.
Just think about it. What's the point of wearing clothes except protection against the harsh weather? None it's just morality based on retarded / belief / religions / traditions. Why do girls don't play with little soldiers and only dolls?
Will I give to my daughter little soldiers? No. Will I become a nudist? No.
Our societies have values that come out of nowhere but it's part of our identities now so if they don't do any harms there is no reason to refute them.
edit : On the love part, i believe love isn't something that was created by our societies. Willing to be with one and only one person all the time is perfectly normal, we can see that with first love at an early age (but there are no scientific proof of that, just like for the majority of our feelings ).
These "arbitary human constructs" are what makes us humans. Without them we would view ourselves as just another specie, and the value of human life would be degraded. Life would lose all its purpose. Interesting topic for discussion though.
I don't think love is an arbitrary concept. It has predictable patterns of behavior, emotion, and cognition. It is unlearned and universal to everybody. It was created through evolution.
What I believe you are talking about is how cultures do love. This is mostly arbitrary. But I think a key thing is that though cultural representations may be arbitrary, every culture has a pair bonding process.
On July 03 2013 03:31 PVJ wrote: My personal bible is Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, and GEB.
Just recently read Kahneman, and it was really awesome book, though I disagree with him about some conclusions in the later part of the book. What is GEB ?
On July 03 2013 03:31 PVJ wrote: My personal bible is Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, and GEB.
Just recently read Kahneman, and it was really awesome book, though I disagree with him about some conclusions in the later part of the book. What is GEB ?
GEB, I presume, is Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.
Its semi-interactive series of puzzles, amphorisms and methaphors themetised along the lines of complexity, incompleteness (the formal logical theorum), and referentiality and recursion.
A neat journey through mathematics and formal logic that opens up to address questions to do with emergent consciousness and cognition from complex systems.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
With the exception of maybe communication, the rest are all arbitrary constructs. Whats to say they are better than love?
More importantly, I think you have the chain of causality flipped around. Love, from a cynical(I would argue realistic, but thats me) perspective is an emergent behaviour, from the interactions of various other behaviours that arise as evolutionary adaptations to procreation, child rearing, group dynamics, and other behaviours associated with a social animals.
We didn't arbitrarily invent love, we just gave an emergent behaviour(or a collection of emergent behaviours) an arbitrary name.
If i understand you correctly then you say that love is an emergent property that comes from the evolutionary adaptation to proceration. Then what about love without the evolutionary aim to procerate? where does that love come from? There are manny examples of this: People love their car and their pets,people love god and poetry and art, people love their parents other family members and friends
For some of these you could argue that love in this situation is more "liking", people like their car and not some other car, people like this piece of classical music but not the other piece. Still the love for family members and friends is verry real and more then simply "liking" it is verry simlar to the love you can feel for the person you aim to procerate with.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
With the exception of maybe communication, the rest are all arbitrary constructs. Whats to say they are better than love?
More importantly, I think you have the chain of causality flipped around. Love, from a cynical(I would argue realistic, but thats me) perspective is an emergent behaviour, from the interactions of various other behaviours that arise as evolutionary adaptations to procreation, child rearing, group dynamics, and other behaviours associated with a social animals.
We didn't arbitrarily invent love, we just gave an emergent behaviour(or a collection of emergent behaviours) an arbitrary name.
I cant help but getting extremely annoyed by all of your posts. It is verry difficult for me to make sense of them. Annyway:if i understand you correctly then you say that love is an emergent property that comes from the evolutionary adaptation to proceration. Then what about love without the evolutionary aim to procerate? where does that love come from? There are manny examples of this: People love their car and their pets,people love god and poetry and art, people love their parents other family members and friends
For some of these you could argue that love in this situation is more "liking", people like their car and not some other car, people like this piece of classical music but not the other piece. Still the love for family members and friends is verry real and more then simply "liking" it is verry simlar to the love you can feel for the person you aim to procerate with.
Your issue is that you assume humans are evolutionarily perfect, that each and every characteristic is responsible for a specific aspect its survival. Rather, it is that such characteristics are merely the least bad at preventing us from dying out, that they are characteristics that persist by chance of being associated with other characteristics that improve our chances for survival.
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
My friend, I think you misunderstand the nature of an arbitrary construct. For an idea to be an arbitrary construct, then in its original conception it must be arbitrary. For example, with religion, I think what people are trying to say is that the originator of the religions made up their concepts on a personal whim, and therefore the concepts themselves are arbitrary constructs. The idea, which is then perpetuated in terms of belief by other people, will always remain, therefore, an arbitrary construct, as it was constructed arbitrarily!
I apologise for all the tautology in there, but I felt it was slightly necessary.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
With the exception of maybe communication, the rest are all arbitrary constructs. Whats to say they are better than love?
More importantly, I think you have the chain of causality flipped around. Love, from a cynical(I would argue realistic, but thats me) perspective is an emergent behaviour, from the interactions of various other behaviours that arise as evolutionary adaptations to procreation, child rearing, group dynamics, and other behaviours associated with a social animals.
We didn't arbitrarily invent love, we just gave an emergent behaviour(or a collection of emergent behaviours) an arbitrary name.
If i understand you correctly then you say that love is an emergent property that comes from the evolutionary adaptation to proceration. Then what about love without the evolutionary aim to procerate? where does that love come from? There are manny examples of this: People love their car and their pets,people love god and poetry and art, people love their parents other family members and friends
For some of these you could argue that love in this situation is more "liking", people like their car and not some other car, people like this piece of classical music but not the other piece. Still the love for family members and friends is verry real and more then simply "liking" it is verry simlar to the love you can feel for the person you aim to procerate with.
I actually meant that list an inclusive sort of behaviours that are associated with love. They don't all necessarily apply in all situations, and love applies to situations that may not be in the list.
Ultimately, love is poorly defined as a whole, in English it is a coverall sort of word for a whole umbrella of generally positive emotions towards other people (or things or ideas), in other languages the distinction between lust, romantic love, platonic love, familial love is often made.
The thing with the concept of love is that there isn't a clear consensus across different cultures on what is and isn't love. While there are obvious similarities and common themes that appear fairly commonly, they are not in perfect agreement.
If we take the relatively modern, chemically/hormonally dominant explanation than there are 3 main groups:
Lust/physical attraction/sexual attraction Mediated primarily by testosterone and estrogen
Romantic love/infatuation/short term attachment Mediated primarily by seratonin, nerve growth factor and dopamine
Pair bonding/familial love/long term attachment Mediated primarily by oxytocin and vasopressin
Those and their combinatorials probably don't cover every type of love covered by the word, but they do a pretty decent job in getting most of the possibilities, and give them at least some empirical basis.
So the theory is that 'love' is actually some combination of those 3 above, obviously some of these are not applicable to some definitions of love, eg sexual attraction is probably not going to be a major factor in parent/child/sibling expressions of love (one would hope).
You can clearly see how each of these and all of them as a whole would play an important evolutionary role in the survival and propagation of organisms, it doesn't mean each is applicable to all forms of love, just that there is a common theme to the nature of their existence in humans.
Specifically, while not all love necessarily has to do with mating, it does as a general rule relate to either increased chance of procreation or the increased chance of survival of partners/offspring/kin.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
With the exception of maybe communication, the rest are all arbitrary constructs. Whats to say they are better than love?
More importantly, I think you have the chain of causality flipped around. Love, from a cynical(I would argue realistic, but thats me) perspective is an emergent behaviour, from the interactions of various other behaviours that arise as evolutionary adaptations to procreation, child rearing, group dynamics, and other behaviours associated with a social animals.
We didn't arbitrarily invent love, we just gave an emergent behaviour(or a collection of emergent behaviours) an arbitrary name.
I cant help but getting extremely annoyed by all of your posts. It is verry difficult for me to make sense of them. Annyway:if i understand you correctly then you say that love is an emergent property that comes from the evolutionary adaptation to proceration. Then what about love without the evolutionary aim to procerate? where does that love come from? There are manny examples of this: People love their car and their pets,people love god and poetry and art, people love their parents other family members and friends
For some of these you could argue that love in this situation is more "liking", people like their car and not some other car, people like this piece of classical music but not the other piece. Still the love for family members and friends is verry real and more then simply "liking" it is verry simlar to the love you can feel for the person you aim to procerate with.
Your issue is that you assume humans are evolutionarily perfect, that each and every characteristic is responsible for a specific aspect its survival. Rather, it is that such characteristics are merely the least bad at preventing us from dying out, that they are characteristics that persist by chance of being associated with other characteristics that improve our chances for survival.
It is also possible to see it as territory or something like this. Wolves protect and love each-other but also their territory. They protect their own things.
We can assume that our liking for our hobbies, family, friends etc... comes from that. We make these hobbies part of our-self by discovering them and practicing them and then when someone criticize it we get upset. The same goes when someone takes something that we think is ours. Yes it's all part of evolution too.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
With the exception of maybe communication, the rest are all arbitrary constructs. Whats to say they are better than love?
More importantly, I think you have the chain of causality flipped around. Love, from a cynical(I would argue realistic, but thats me) perspective is an emergent behaviour, from the interactions of various other behaviours that arise as evolutionary adaptations to procreation, child rearing, group dynamics, and other behaviours associated with a social animals.
We didn't arbitrarily invent love, we just gave an emergent behaviour(or a collection of emergent behaviours) an arbitrary name.
If i understand you correctly then you say that love is an emergent property that comes from the evolutionary adaptation to proceration. Then what about love without the evolutionary aim to procerate? where does that love come from? There are manny examples of this: People love their car and their pets,people love god and poetry and art, people love their parents other family members and friends
For some of these you could argue that love in this situation is more "liking", people like their car and not some other car, people like this piece of classical music but not the other piece. Still the love for family members and friends is verry real and more then simply "liking" it is verry simlar to the love you can feel for the person you aim to procerate with.
Your objection is showing misunderstanding of evolution. Why do we find small animal cute, because evolutionary solutions are in a way efficient also in regards to cost. It is much easier to "design" a system that considers all young animals cute than system that considers only young human animals cute. And if the simpler systems works well enough, it is ok. The same way goes for love.
Some kinds non-procreation love are also evolutionarily beneficial, like love for your parents, members of community. But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Evolution does not fix problems if the fix would be more expensive than the problem.
It's not that love is a human construct, it's a human emotion we labeled with a word. The attachment to a mate or person or a group has deep evolutionary roots, we are social animals. When you love a person and it's taken from you or in danger you will go through a great deal of emotional turmoil. If your mate or group is in danger, those powerful emotions motivate action.
We are capable of abstract thinking and become attached to objects as well as people. I love my computer, and if it was to break or be taken away from me it would be an emotional ordeal for me. The severity of emotions is related to how attached you are to the person or object in question.
We didn't design or create love. We simply put a label on an experience that people have. That feeling is based on evolved psychology. To denounce love is to denounce, in a way, your humanity. To have mating as a mere transaction it would depersonalize it and take away from its value. It's unnatural to force a change in these things.
Religion is also a very human trait. We revere and worship things greater than ourselves. Whether you pray to a deity or worship the sun its very natural. It's natural to feel very pleased towards the sun on a warm day after it's been raining or to hate the sun on a hot day, just like people of religion praise god or get angry with their god.
I think it is not the feeling or idea that is the problem, it's what you do with it. If you are depressed or hurt yourself because of love it is an issue. If you kill or hate others in the name of your religion it's a problem.
I think we should focus on how we deal with these things rather than deny them. Encouraging healthy management of the feelings of love or loss of love are more important than removing it. Same goes for religions, respect older generations beliefs but take them with a grain of salt. There is a lot of history surrounding religion and it's never a good idea forget things or burn books.
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
Of course the root is evolutionary beneficial, love for the community, but love for the country is a hijack. I used hijack instead of by product as it is not "natural" byproduct, it was somewhat intentionally co-opted by nationalism. I hope I am somewhat clear
People like to fill their life with meaning and both religion and love are what Dawkins calls memes. Ideas that have been transferred from generation to generation.
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
Of course the root is evolutionary beneficial, love for the community, but love for the country is a hijack. I used hijack instead of by product as it is not "natural" byproduct, it was somewhat intentionally co-opted by nationalism. I hope I am somewhat clear
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots. I doubt wolves create the arbitrary construct of a pack mentality no more than ants create the arbitrary construct of a hive mentality.
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
My friend, I think you misunderstand the nature of an arbitrary construct. For an idea to be an arbitrary construct, then in its original conception it must be arbitrary. For example, with religion, I think what people are trying to say is that the originator of the religions made up their concepts on a personal whim, and therefore the concepts themselves are arbitrary constructs. The idea, which is then perpetuated in terms of belief by other people, will always remain, therefore, an arbitrary construct, as it was constructed arbitrarily!
I apologise for all the tautology in there, but I felt it was slightly necessary.
But its never treated in an arbitrary way.
Science, for example, changes all the time as new information arises. But we don't call outdated results "arbitrary constructs" just because it turned out we were wrong. We say the evidence was either insufficient or not yet present at the time. When paleontologist mixed up dinasaur bones initially--we don't call their original skeletons arbitrary constructs no more than we call featherless dinasaurs arbitrary constructs.
People having bad evidence does not make their conclusions arbitrary; especially when their conclusions hinges on the supposedly true witnessing a of real events.
Arbitrary would be "I believe in X because _______ says I should" which is not what religion is at all. Religion is "X was observed by Y, and it was documented by Z." Which is the opposite of arbitrary.
The reason you can't just make up a religion today is because most other religions hinge on the premise of witnessing events/miracles. Unless you have the "witness" you don't have the religion and today's rigors are much more strict than the past's rigors. Which is why most of the older religions gets a lot of support because their witness can't be falsified. We can't actually say that we know for a fact that there was no Abraham. We can't say for a fact that Mohammed didn't talk to God. You and I might feel that the evidence is insufficient--but sufficiency of evidence is a personal preference.
Even if they were all fictional--believers of a religion see them as historical fact and true witnessing of events. The opposite of arbitrary constructs.
For it to be an arbitrary construct it has to be made up from scratch.
My friend, I think you misunderstand the nature of an arbitrary construct. For an idea to be an arbitrary construct, then in its original conception it must be arbitrary. For example, with religion, I think what people are trying to say is that the originator of the religions made up their concepts on a personal whim, and therefore the concepts themselves are arbitrary constructs. The idea, which is then perpetuated in terms of belief by other people, will always remain, therefore, an arbitrary construct, as it was constructed arbitrarily!
I apologise for all the tautology in there, but I felt it was slightly necessary.
But its never treated in an arbitrary way.
Science, for example, changes all the time as new information arises. But we don't call outdated results "arbitrary constructs" just because it turned out we were wrong. We say the evidence was either insufficient or not yet present at the time. When paleontologist mixed up dinasaur bones initially--we don't call their original skeletons arbitrary constructs no more than we call featherless dinasaurs arbitrary constructs.
People having bad evidence does not make their conclusions arbitrary; especially when their conclusions hinges on the supposedly true witnessing a of real events.
Arbitrary would be "I believe in X because _______ says I should" which is not what religion is at all. Religion is "X was observed by Y, and it was documented by Z." Which is the opposite of arbitrary.
The reason you can't just make up a religion today is because most other religions hinge on the premise of witnessing events/miracles. Unless you have the "witness" you don't have the religion and today's rigors are much more strict than the past's rigors. Which is why most of the older religions gets a lot of support because their witness can't be falsified. We can't actually say that we know for a fact that there was no Abraham. We can't say for a fact that Mohammed didn't talk to God. You and I might feel that the evidence is insufficient--but sufficiency of evidence is a personal preference.
I think you make good points, but I will correct your last point. It is in fact quite easy to make up a religion, especially in more developed countries. There are new evangelical Christian branches formed all the time. Even atheists usually hail their own growth in numbers and have expanded to include their own Sunday school.
But if you're talking about a new religion that displaces and eliminates the incumbent religions, that's a taller order. It's unlikely to happen in a modern country with a vibrant freedom of religion because there's no acceptable way to wipe out the others. It's unlikely to happen in a traditional country with a single religion or a hodgepodge of traditionalist religions because the world is much smaller and we're far more fearful of religions based on conquest after the experiences with fascism and communism.
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
Look how many genocides this "in-group protection" caused in human history. How is that beneficial in any way to any party involved?
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
Look how many genocides this "in-group protection" caused in human history. How is that beneficial in any way to any party involved?
People are not perfectly co-operative agents, so genocide eliminates competition for limited resources and prevents or destroys the competition's power of extending their influence over you and said resources. The same way big cats often kill the young of other species of big cats.
Genocide may be offensive to our morals and sensibilities, but I think it's pretty easy to see how certain parties benefit from it. Humanity as a whole might suffer as a result of genocide, but almost certainly parts of humanity would benefit.
edit: great, you know you need to reconsider your life choices when you just spent your 1000th post espousing the benefits of genocide .
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
Of course the root is evolutionary beneficial, love for the community, but love for the country is a hijack. I used hijack instead of by product as it is not "natural" byproduct, it was somewhat intentionally co-opted by nationalism. I hope I am somewhat clear
anybody else notice the strange increase in amount of people using the word "co-opt" lately?
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
You can't reject that which makes you what you are. It's not ARBITRARY because it's HUMAN. There is a ridiculous modern notion that we are somehow beyond evolution, that we are not in constant competition, that we are 'fair' or led by reason. Utter bullshit. We spend our entire lives competing for mates and securing safe positive lifestyles for our families. Sorry but humans cannot be not human.
On July 02 2013 10:37 Excludos wrote: Many of the smartest and greatest people in history was uninterested in love. I fully believe there is something there.
Love is a biological way for humans to reproduce and take care of their family. It's still impossible for most of us to resist, even if we know this fact. Its firmly rooted into our brains.
And many of the greatest and most brilliant people were soaked in the idea of love.
Love is something 99.99% of humans experience towards someone and yes I made that up it's probably true anyway or close. It is deeply rooted in human nature. Love and passion beyond sex and outside of a sexual context entirely is one of the things that separates man from the animals.
Classifying it as just some subjective experience that a few people can transcend in some kind of way is treating love too lightly. After food and shelter is taken care of, love is what makes humans human. Love for family, for friends, for the land we live on, curiosity - a form of love - and all the things done for it. Love directly or indirectly governs the large majority of human behavior. If it wasn't that way, we wouldn't be talking about humans, we'd be talking about the Illimunati Reptiloids.
So what if love is wired into our brains. Transcending biology may be a fun thought experiment but it has no application besides amusement.
On July 02 2013 10:37 Excludos wrote: Many of the smartest and greatest people in history was uninterested in love. I fully believe there is something there.
Love is a biological way for humans to reproduce and take care of their family. It's still impossible for most of us to resist, even if we know this fact. Its firmly rooted into our brains.
And many of the greatest and most brilliant people were soaked in the idea of love.
Love is something 99.99% of humans experience towards someone and yes I made that up it's probably true anyway or close. It is deeply rooted in human nature. Love and passion beyond sex and outside of a sexual context entirely is one of the things that separates man from the animals.
Classifying it as just some subjective experience that a few people can transcend in some kind of way is treating love too lightly. After food and shelter is taken care of, love is what makes humans human. Love for family, for friends, for the land we live on, curiosity - a form of love - and all the things done for it. Love directly or indirectly governs the large majority of human behavior. If it wasn't that way, we wouldn't be talking about humans, we'd be talking about the Illimunati Reptiloids.
So what if love is wired into our brains. Transcending biology may be a fun thought experiment but it has no application besides amusement.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
I don't think you can directly associate the institution of religion with its presence or value as a "abstract construct" you compare the institutions of religion with the concept of love, and I think it would be better compared to the concept of religion or the institute of love. The concept of religion is a lot more complex than the institutions, and less prone to abuse. Marriage is probably the closest thing to an institute of love and it is receiving a fair amount of flac to be fair.
On July 02 2013 10:37 Excludos wrote: Many of the smartest and greatest people in history was uninterested in love. I fully believe there is something there.
Love is a biological way for humans to reproduce and take care of their family. It's still impossible for most of us to resist, even if we know this fact. Its firmly rooted into our brains.
And many of the greatest and most brilliant people were soaked in the idea of love.
Love is something 99.99% of humans experience towards someone and yes I made that up it's probably true anyway or close. It is deeply rooted in human nature. Love and passion beyond sex and outside of a sexual context entirely is one of the things that separates man from the animals.
Classifying it as just some subjective experience that a few people can transcend in some kind of way is treating love too lightly. After food and shelter is taken care of, love is what makes humans human. Love for family, for friends, for the land we live on, curiosity - a form of love - and all the things done for it. Love directly or indirectly governs the large majority of human behavior. If it wasn't that way, we wouldn't be talking about humans, we'd be talking about the Illimunati Reptiloids.
So what if love is wired into our brains. Transcending biology may be a fun thought experiment but it has no application besides amusement.
On July 02 2013 10:37 Excludos wrote: Many of the smartest and greatest people in history was uninterested in love. I fully believe there is something there.
Love is a biological way for humans to reproduce and take care of their family. It's still impossible for most of us to resist, even if we know this fact. Its firmly rooted into our brains.
And many of the greatest and most brilliant people were soaked in the idea of love.
Love is something 99.99% of humans experience towards someone and yes I made that up it's probably true anyway or close. It is deeply rooted in human nature. Love and passion beyond sex and outside of a sexual context entirely is one of the things that separates man from the animals.
Classifying it as just some subjective experience that a few people can transcend in some kind of way is treating love too lightly. After food and shelter is taken care of, love is what makes humans human. Love for family, for friends, for the land we live on, curiosity - a form of love - and all the things done for it. Love directly or indirectly governs the large majority of human behavior. If it wasn't that way, we wouldn't be talking about humans, we'd be talking about the Illimunati Reptiloids.
So what if love is wired into our brains. Transcending biology may be a fun thought experiment but it has no application besides amusement.
On July 04 2013 00:50 mcc wrote: But some are just hijacks of imperfect system. Like love of a country.
Don't you think our tendency towards (admittedly disgusting) nationalism probably had a highly beneficial evolutionary role? By-product of in-group protection, etc.?
Of course the root is evolutionary beneficial, love for the community, but love for the country is a hijack. I used hijack instead of by product as it is not "natural" byproduct, it was somewhat intentionally co-opted by nationalism. I hope I am somewhat clear
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots. I doubt wolves create the arbitrary construct of a pack mentality no more than ants create the arbitrary construct of a hive mentality.
The comparison there is completely invalid. The wolves are loyal to a set of individuals which each and every one of them is familiar with. The patriot is loyal to an idea and not to any tangible individual (unlike, say, the tribesman, who bears no loyalty to an artificial construct when he protects his tribe). Ants are tough to compare because their intelligence is so primitive that their loyalties are similar to our "loyalties" to food and water. The ant did not create the hive. Evolution created the hive. Evolution did not create the nation. A specific human created the nation (or a small group of them).
There is a HUGE difference between natural and cultural forces. Please learn to recognize it.
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.
If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.
Love as a set of feelings can certainly be said to be a true thing. However, the concepts of "eternal love" or the "love" that is often used by people to justify their long-term relationships, dating and marriage traditions, or matters of fidelity, e.g. "I cheated on her because I don't love her anymore"...these can be debated to be arbitrary human constructs, and I don't think it's wrong to challenge them and break them down so we don't lose sight of reality.
From my experience, love is a rather ephemeral thing. Beyond an initial phase, people are never constantly in love with eachother. In fact from what I've observed, all couples sometimes love eachother, sometimes hate eachother, and much of the time they're indifferent. I'd say the long-term cohesion between them stems from other feelings, like loyalty (belief that the two of you can always rely on one another and are stronger for it), materialistic values (posesssing a standard family is a sign of success), and a desire for order in one's life (seeking out new romances eventually gets tiring).
Religions are based on the metaphysical. The Path to God. This practice exists in just about every culture on the planet. And you would be surprised how much these Religions have in common.
They're many religions, but they all point to the same path. This one path is metaphysical. The reason people believe in Religion, is due to these metaphysical experiences.
The consistency of these metaphysical experiences is why people will continue to take up religion. Just like any subject, the path requires a teacher to guide you to success.
I don't believe in free will. So when you talk about denying love. I don't think you yourself have that capability. You obviously lack the experience, but somehow you're attempting to predict a future where it never happens to you. Good luck with that.
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
According to Sam Harris, Religion has an evolutionary back-story. Basically, humankind evolved around the concept of being able to avoid unnecessary hardship by learning from the mistakes of others, in the form of heeding spoken warnings. This same mechanic caused us to evolve to be able to believe things spoken without having to experience them for ourselves, and thus when people started having near-death experiences and/or sampling psychedelics, and later recount their experiences, religion was born.
On July 02 2013 07:36 S:klogW wrote: Stand aside guys, we have a virgin over here.
User was temp banned for this post.
Unban. Fair comment in a ridiculous thread.
Eh, it would indeed seem as though this thread is on a one-way train to shitsville. Most threads broaching religion and politics tend to eventually. I haven't checked, has someone mentioned Hitler yet?
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.
If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.
You mean like the 10 year war in Afghanistan that the US just ended? Or the 5+ year war that the US was in before that?
Maybe you ment the Kosovo altercations in the late 90's? Or the gulf war in the late 80's?
Or maybe you meant the war torn history of the US for most of the 20th century?
And that's just the US. What about war in other nations?
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
Do you have proof that it's a hallucination?
Remember, the argument is that religion is an arbitrary construct--if people believe it because they believed the ramblings of some guy, whether its true or not has not bearing on the fact that it stops being arbitrary if people believe what he is saying anyway.
An arbitrary construct suggests that people conceive of an abstract idea and follow it. Religion is hearing someone say something is supposedly true, and believing them. That's the opposite of arbitrary. That's literally taking evidence and structuring your viewpoint on that evidence.
You not finding the evidence valid does not mean the believer finds the evidence invalid.
According to Sam Harris, Religion has an evolutionary back-story. Basically, humankind evolved around the concept of being able to avoid unnecessary hardship by learning from the mistakes of others, in the form of heeding spoken warnings. This same mechanic caused us to evolve to be able to believe things spoken without having to experience them for ourselves, and thus when people started having near-death experiences and/or sampling psychedelics, and later recount their experiences, religion was born.
On July 02 2013 07:36 S:klogW wrote: Stand aside guys, we have a virgin over here.
User was temp banned for this post.
Unban. Fair comment in a ridiculous thread.
Eh, it would indeed seem as though this thread is on a one-way train to shitsville. Most threads broaching religion and politics tend to eventually. I haven't checked, has someone mentioned Hitler yet?
I think he is glossing over the big part of what makes religion different from a cult following; ancient texts. Humans naturally get attached to group-think and modes of suggestion. Sports fans, popstar fans, cultists, etc... Wherein through spoken word force of will, a zheitgheist forms that causes the group to trust each other arbitrarily "you listen to Taylor swift? Me too!" Wherein the truth or reasons for grouping are arbitrary.
Religion almost always hinges on ancient texts or ancient teachings while giving those writings validity because they are understood as truths.
The bible, for example, is a good example of this. They take the evidence (bible) and hinge their truth on either the validity of the text, or the interpretation of the text. Groups for. As their understanding of the evidence changes, and the groups argue about how to properly study/read/translate the evidence available. The entire Christian religion and their splinters are the constant study and argumentation of the bible, the written testimonies of the witnessing of god.
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.
If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.
You mean like the 10 year war in Afghanistan that the US just ended? Or the 5+ year war that the US was in before that?
Maybe you ment the Kosovo altercations in the late 90's? Or the gulf war in the late 80's?
Or maybe you meant the war torn history of the US for most of the 20th century?
And that's just the US. What about war in other nations?
No, there is no difference.
I think an important difference is that a third-party wolf pack would not dream of assisting a weaker wolf pack being preyed upon by a stronger pack. But this is pretty much what happened in many of those conflicts (imo).
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.
If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.
You mean like the 10 year war in Afghanistan that the US just ended? Or the 5+ year war that the US was in before that?
Maybe you ment the Kosovo altercations in the late 90's? Or the gulf war in the late 80's?
Or maybe you meant the war torn history of the US for most of the 20th century?
And that's just the US. What about war in other nations?
No, there is no difference.
I think an important difference is that a third-party wolf pack would not dream of assisting a weaker wolf pack being preyed upon by a stronger pack. But this is pretty much what happened in many of those conflicts (imo).
I could totally imagine a third-party wolf pack helping a weaker wolf pack if they had something to gain (eg by helping to defeat the stronger pack they are now the strongest pack in the area).
The difference is that wolves don't have trade, and while they are social animals they social networks are nowhere near as large, complicated or as powerful as our own.
We are capable of much deeper levels simulation of the world in order to understand it, and so we are able to consciously comprehend concepts like deterring conflict in order to reduce damage to potential markets, defence of weaker nations in order to stop them from being subsumed by competitors, helping allies or third parties in order to better one's comparative position against competitors.
Ultimately, these are still rooted in selfish motivations, we might have a superior ability to predict and manipulate the future, and have more tools at our disposal to do so than just 'barring teeth' and 'bombing', but there really isn't any conclusive evidence that our actions are not primarily rooted, in what are essentially selfish reasons.
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.
If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.
You mean like the 10 year war in Afghanistan that the US just ended? Or the 5+ year war that the US was in before that?
Maybe you ment the Kosovo altercations in the late 90's? Or the gulf war in the late 80's?
Or maybe you meant the war torn history of the US for most of the 20th century?
And that's just the US. What about war in other nations?
No, there is no difference.
I think an important difference is that a third-party wolf pack would not dream of assisting a weaker wolf pack being preyed upon by a stronger pack. But this is pretty much what happened in many of those conflicts (imo).
I could totally imagine a third-party wolf pack helping a weaker wolf pack if they had something to gain (eg by helping to defeat the stronger pack they are now the strongest pack in the area).
The difference is that wolves don't have trade, and while they are social animals they social networks are nowhere near as large, complicated or as powerful as our own.
We are capable of much deeper levels simulation of the world in order to understand it, and so we are able to consciously comprehend concepts like deterring conflict in order to reduce damage to potential markets, defence of weaker nations in order to stop them from being subsumed by competitors, helping allies or third parties in order to better one's comparative position against competitors.
Ultimately, these are still rooted in selfish motivations, we might have a superior ability to predict and manipulate the future, and have more tools at our disposal to do so than just 'barring teeth' and 'bombing', but there really isn't any conclusive evidence that our actions are not primarily rooted, in what are essentially selfish reasons.
I genuinely believe that support for most current armed conflicts on both sides come from moral convictions (no matter how deluded) rather than simple self-interest.
There's nothing wrong with religion for the most part. If it wasn't for wars fought over the name of religion the wars would have been fought over disagreements and prejudices.
Look up the life expectancy of those that are spiritual & religious vs those that are not.
Spirituality is great, it is the essence of existence itself. We are a reflection of the universe and some would say everything is apart of God or they we are God's minds eye.
Dogmatic religion I don't agree with but it's important to respect religion in my opinion instead of being like the average online atheist that is neither spiritual nor religious and has an ignorant view of reality (based around labels, conditions, not looking or thinking deep enough, and not respecting spirituality and does not think enough aka stays in the box) that talks bad on religion all day such as Richard Dawkins or Matt Diluhunty and their followers who basically turned atheism into a religion/cult that is downright depressing and ignorant.
Religion can teach good values and whether people believe it or not it might have some validity (I'm not religious, only spiritual).
I see far more negativity from those that are not religious such as the online extremist atheists vs those that are religious or spiritual. Richard Dawkins is one of the most ignorant atheists that I have ever seen/heard of and he is downright depressing (he probably suffers from depression or some sort of mental illness as well due to this....Christopher Hitchens was a heavy alcoholic and it probably had to due with his mental illnesses due to all of the hatred in his heart for religion/spirituality.)
I think that being religious is a good thing, gives meaning, teaches good values for the most part, and some religions such as Buddhism are not dogmatic at all and teach you about the reality of our existence, make you wiser, and will show you that even most non spiritual atheists views of life, death, and the reality of the universe are not only down right depressing.....but also straight up wrong.
I can honestly say that Spirituality and Buddhism made me go from being a depressed and anxious person and caused me to "wake up" and not take things for granted, be a nicer/more loving person, understand things on a very deep level, and understand that even the man made labels such as "death" do not exist and that we should embrace the sufferings in life and smile with them.
I also continue to learn and become a stronger, more grounded, and more understanding person every day.
So with that said I think that science is only going to go so far as everything that could be done has been done and all that we're doing is manipulating the matter that already exists.
I fine science to be boring by itself, but spirituality to be deep, rich, and full of love & understanding of the reality of our nature.
But when it comes down to it who do you think suffers more???
The person that is a Christian that "knows" that when they die they will go to heaven and embraces death with open arms or the Atheist that "knows" that when he dies he's wiped off the board completely and nothing happens at all???
See how I quoted "knows"??? We know nothing about death (besides the whole third eye phenomenon which could have s spiritual backing to it) yet both parties say that they "know" exactly what happens.
The only thing is the Christian view of death is good whereas the atheists view of death that lacks spirituality is that of depressing and ignorance.
On July 06 2013 21:25 KingAce wrote: Religions are based on the metaphysical. The Path to God. This practice exists in just about every culture on the planet. And you would be surprised how much these Religions have in common.
They're many religions, but they all point to the same path. This one path is metaphysical. The reason people believe in Religion, is due to these metaphysical experiences.
The consistency of these metaphysical experiences is why people will continue to take up religion. Just like any subject, the path requires a teacher to guide you to success.
I don't believe in free will. So when you talk about denying love. I don't think you yourself have that capability. You obviously lack the experience, but somehow you're attempting to predict a future where it never happens to you. Good luck with that.
You don't believe in free will yet even scientifically there is evidence that free will does exist (youtube it).
Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
In particular:
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Bit long for what is just a simple ad-hominem. You just don't like atheists and you are apparently willing go to any lengths to slander the characters of any that are too outspoken. Atleast Dawkins never degenerates into these kinds of personal attacks. Admittedly Hitchens did like personal attacks, but atleast he was funny about it.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
In particular:
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Bit long for what is just a simple ad-hominem. You just don't like atheists and you are apparently willing go to any lengths to slander the characters of any that are too outspoken. Atleast Dawkins never degenerates into these kinds of personal attacks. Admittedly Hitchens did like personal attacks, but atleast he was funny about it.
How can I not like atheists when I am an atheist?
I do not believe in a personal god......I'm pantheist (like Albert Einstein) which in the words of Dawkins is just "sexed up atheism".
I would never go around telling people that I'm an atheist straight up though because they've got a bad reputation of being immature, name calling, & basing everything around scientific evidence and getting pissed off when someone says they believe in a God whereas I'm the opposite and am open minded & spiritual.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
In particular:
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
Thank you for proving my point that most atheists will only listen to the evidence that supports their beliefs and ignore the evidence that supports anything that goes against the grain even if it is scientific evidence.
You wantdevidence for reincarnation?
He dedicated his whole life to the research.
Done.
Also some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go.
You have to remember that science itself is founded around the use of the 5 senses to come up with scientific data for something and it does not extend beyond that.
There are people who can recall memories from their past lives, they might be making it up of course but some of them are remarkably detailed, so its interesting. But no wai, someone said the word religion in their OP, call the Fedorapatrol! Their euphoria shall serve all humanity!
I love the ...actual... theme of this thread. The feeling of love is extremely dangerous. Love as a construct leads people to do really stupid things to express or fulfill it. Mainly because love is confused for lust sometimes, so you meet this qt3.14 and your religion says you have to marry her to have sex with her but then you discover shes really really evil later on, lol.
If we were to say, "go Vulcan" and moderate our feelings this society would see a huge improvement IMO because you hear of crimes of passion so often, people murder their kids to get back at a wife, and I could go on but you see too much passion between people. OP I agree with you, we could move humanity forward by deciding to find mates by using logic, and outcome science over just blind following of lusts.
True love I believe has been given to us by God, its not about lust for physical needs, it does not need to be between a man and woman, you can, love thy neighbor as yourself (love of yourself) you can love your pets or your community.
The Bible has a good quote, 1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."
The commentary: "13:4-7 In this beautiful description of the nature and effects of love, it is meant to show the Corinthians that their conduct had, in many respects, been a contrast to it. Charity is an utter enemy to selfishness; it does not desire or seek its own praise, or honour, or profit, or pleasure. Not that charity destroys all regard to ourselves, or that the charitable man should neglect himself and all his interests. But charity never seeks its own to the hurt of others, or to neglect others. It ever prefers the welfare of others to its private advantage. How good-natured and amiable is Christian charity! How excellent would Christianity appear to the world, if those who profess it were more under this Divine principle, and paid due regard to the command on which its blessed Author laid the chief stress! Let us ask whether this Divine love dwells in our hearts. Has this principle guided us into becoming behaviour to all men? Are we willing to lay aside selfish objects and aims? Here is a call to watchfulness, diligence, and prayer."
Anyway I think people treating love as charity and kindness to our various paramours would go a long way to seeing good love instead of just lustly love that the media tends to glorify.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Bit long for what is just a simple ad-hominem. You just don't like atheists and you are apparently willing go to any lengths to slander the characters of any that are too outspoken. Atleast Dawkins never degenerates into these kinds of personal attacks. Admittedly Hitchens did like personal attacks, but atleast he was funny about it.
How can I not like atheists when I am an atheist?
I do not believe in a personal god......I'm pantheist (like Albert Einstein) which in the words of Dawkins is just "sexed up atheism".
I would never go around telling people that I'm an atheist straight up though because they've got a bad reputation of being immature, name calling, & basing everything around scientific evidence and getting pissed off when someone says they believe in a God whereas I'm the opposite and am open minded & spiritual.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
In particular:
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
Thank you for proving my point that most atheists will only listen to the evidence that supports their beliefs and ignore the evidence that supports anything that goes against the grain even if it is scientific evidence.
Also some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go.
You have to remember that science itself is founded around the use of the 5 senses to come up with scientific data for something and it does not extend beyond that.
I'm not an atheist, so stop making assumptions.
First you tell me that you have scientific evidence, then you turn around and say "some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go" which, to me, is interesting because I don't understand how anyone could know about these things if they go beyond the senses.
The problem with the guy you linked is that his evidence is methodologically flawed. I don't doubt the man's honesty or anything like that, but if you actually take a look at his research, you can see that it's affected by confirmation bias, and that many of his claims just aren't falsifiable. Furthermore, there aren't any blindness qualifiers for his experiments. I mean, many of the people he interviewed had a relationship with the family of the deceased person who would hypothetically have been reincarnated within the interviewee. That's a pretty huge weakness right there. Secondly, most of his interviews took place years after the fact and amount to nothing more than anecdotes/hearsay. It's a pretty huge stretch to say, as you have, that there is "overwhelming evidence" in support of reincarnation/mediums. This is super-anecdotal evidence at best, and it definitely doesn't conform to accepted standards of scientific methodology.
What's more, from what I can see, scientists actually liked this guy. They thought he was gullible and misguided, sure, but they thought he was an honest guy and a hard worker. So I'm not sure where you're coming from with this idea that scientists are just ignoring the evidence in support of these outlandish paranormal phenomena. They were as gentle as can be with this guy, and his work was widely published/read. It wasn't ignored. It was just criticized for being wrong, lol.
On July 07 2013 08:31 Falling wrote: What makes something arbitrary? Because you declare it to be so? Why should I consider love to be an arbitrary construct?
In other news, if this is a sneaky attempt to get a religious debate going, this thread will have a very short end.
There seems to be a lot of bashing on atheists lately (judging popular atheists without even giving proof of these claims).
I guess the only decent philosophical start we can have is state out a clear, concise, operational definition of arbitrary and work from there. A basic google search gives: "Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system" which, to me, seems a perfectly decent definition of the word. In other words it means that there is no logical/methodological system underpinning the belief. For love there seems to be a multitude of reasons, but these reasons are all personal and subjective which lends itself to an ironic sort of mix of arbitrary/non-abitrary. Unless we want to change the definition to make things clearer of course.
The OP cunningly failed to give an actual definition of love (you know, the same thing that philosophers and authors have been disagreeing about since the advent of writing) so it's impossible to say whether it's arbitrary.
On July 07 2013 09:00 Shiori wrote: The OP cunningly failed to give an actual definition of love (you know, the same thing that philosophers and authors have been disagreeing about since the advent of writing) so it's impossible to say whether it's arbitrary.
nothing to add except that I love your usage of the word cunningly.
On July 07 2013 08:31 Falling wrote: What makes something arbitrary? Because you declare it to be so? Why should I consider love to be an arbitrary construct?
In other news, if this is a sneaky attempt to get a religious debate going, this thread will have a very short end.
There seems to be a lot of bashing on atheists lately (judging popular atheists without even giving proof of these claims).
I guess the only decent philosophical start we can have is state out a clear, concise, operational definition of arbitrary and work from there. A basic google search gives: "Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system" which, to me, seems a perfectly decent definition of the word. In other words it means that there is no logical/methodological system underpinning the belief. For love there seems to be a multitude of reasons, but these reasons are all personal and subjective which lends itself to an ironic sort of mix of arbitrary/non-abitrary. Unless we want to change the definition to make things clearer of course.
If you gather from the way the OP presented his post, he wants to single out religion and love for being unusually arbitrary in what the rest of us understand as a world of choices with some rationale, plenty of rationale, and hardly a scrap of rationale whatsoever. I talked about this in my previous post in the thread:his arbitrary (pardon the tongue in cheek) selection of the relentless march of knowledge in the face of false ideas is declared at the start. Why should humans possessing a variety of shades of intelligence not scrap it all in the face of other pursuits than the overturn of false ideas? I know some ambitious people that have every reason to know something is not the case, but pretending that it is means more wealth and comfort for them. I see a poster not acknowledging the competing claims of shades of arbitrariness.
That's really all to see here. He'll single out two things and call them arbitrary, and act like the world stands behind him in his selection of which ideas and things to put in the ARBITRARY bin and the NOT ARBITRARY bin. It is exactly those kind of choices that make societies different? As Falling wrote, should I believe something to be arbitrary "because you declare it so?"
I don't think there is any difference between a pack mentality amongst wolves and the pack mentality of patriots.
If that were the case there'd be new wars popping up every 2 weeks. The pack mentality of wolves is to show domination over other packs they encounter through intimidation or butt-kicking. That is one way nations interact with each other but there are a lot more that don't involve baring of teeth or bombing.
You mean like the 10 year war in Afghanistan that the US just ended? Or the 5+ year war that the US was in before that?
Maybe you ment the Kosovo altercations in the late 90's? Or the gulf war in the late 80's?
Or maybe you meant the war torn history of the US for most of the 20th century?
And that's just the US. What about war in other nations?
No, there is no difference.
I think an important difference is that a third-party wolf pack would not dream of assisting a weaker wolf pack being preyed upon by a stronger pack. But this is pretty much what happened in many of those conflicts (imo).
I could totally imagine a third-party wolf pack helping a weaker wolf pack if they had something to gain (eg by helping to defeat the stronger pack they are now the strongest pack in the area).
The difference is that wolves don't have trade, and while they are social animals they social networks are nowhere near as large, complicated or as powerful as our own.
We are capable of much deeper levels simulation of the world in order to understand it, and so we are able to consciously comprehend concepts like deterring conflict in order to reduce damage to potential markets, defence of weaker nations in order to stop them from being subsumed by competitors, helping allies or third parties in order to better one's comparative position against competitors.
Ultimately, these are still rooted in selfish motivations, we might have a superior ability to predict and manipulate the future, and have more tools at our disposal to do so than just 'barring teeth' and 'bombing', but there really isn't any conclusive evidence that our actions are not primarily rooted, in what are essentially selfish reasons.
I genuinely believe that support for most current armed conflicts on both sides come from moral convictions (no matter how deluded) rather than simple self-interest.
I would say exactly the opposite. Firstly, armed conflicts based on moral convictions would be no less motivated by self interest. It is no coincidence that the things we find morally offensive also match up pretty well with things that either directly, or indirectly, would make our own societies worse to live in should we allow them to occur. Morals are essentially a instinctual aversion to activities that would erode the social-cooperative system we humans have carefully constructed should we allow them to occur. Just because we don't tend to consider them consciously as selfish doesn't mean they don't serve self interest.
More importantly however, most major armed conflicts of late have been pretty unpopular among citizenry of the aggressor countries. Afghanistan and Iraq were wildly unpopular not only in the US, but also in the UK and Australia, and all 3 countries went in anyway. That would suggest most people found these conflicts morally questionable at best, but the governments of these nations decided it was in their best interests to go in, and self interest won out in the end over any sort of moral conviction.
This thread is obnoxious. People are using the term "evidence" very loosely.
The idea that there's "evidence for reincarnation" because "kids seem to remember previous lives" and have birth marks and birth defects is dubious at best... I remember almost drowning in a pool and that was actually my brother, and my "memory" was forged when my aunt mistakenly told me that it was me who fell in the pool when I was a child. And I have a bad heart as a birth defect, does that make me a reincarnation of someone who couldn't swim and got shot in the chest or something?
Defend with positions with the tools that you've got. Don't try to suggest that some "scientist" trying to make a case without the scientific method somehow constitutes proper evidence. Scientist =/= science.
On July 07 2013 22:30 Djzapz wrote: This thread is obnoxious. People are using the term "evidence" very loosely.
The idea that there's "evidence for reincarnation" because "kids seem to remember previous lives" and have birth marks and birth defects is dubious at best... I remember almost drowning in a pool and that was actually my brother, and my "memory" was forged when my aunt mistakenly told me that it was me who fell in the pool when I was a child. And I have a bad heart as a birth defect, does that make me a reincarnation of someone who couldn't swim and got shot in the chest or something?
Defend with positions with the tools that you've got. Don't try to suggest that some "scientist" trying to make a case without the scientific method somehow constitutes proper evidence. Scientist =/= science.
Stop with the cheap rhetoric -_-
Not that I disagree with you--but science is also about progress and innovation. Without some scientists doing something "obviously wrong" or "pointless" we will never the validity or invalidity of said research. It's okay for scientist to pursue paths outside of dogma--even if all it does is serve as a case study of malpractice.
I do agree with you, just warning you to not accidentally treat science like Catholics treats Christianity.
On July 07 2013 22:30 Djzapz wrote: This thread is obnoxious. People are using the term "evidence" very loosely.
The idea that there's "evidence for reincarnation" because "kids seem to remember previous lives" and have birth marks and birth defects is dubious at best... I remember almost drowning in a pool and that was actually my brother, and my "memory" was forged when my aunt mistakenly told me that it was me who fell in the pool when I was a child. And I have a bad heart as a birth defect, does that make me a reincarnation of someone who couldn't swim and got shot in the chest or something?
Defend with positions with the tools that you've got. Don't try to suggest that some "scientist" trying to make a case without the scientific method somehow constitutes proper evidence. Scientist =/= science.
Stop with the cheap rhetoric -_-
Not that I disagree with you--but science is also about progress and innovation. Without some scientists doing something "obviously wrong" or "pointless" we will never the validity or invalidity of said research. It's okay for scientist to pursue paths outside of dogma--even if all it does is serve as a case study of malpractice.
I do agree with you, just warning you to not accidentally treat science like Catholics treats Christianity.
Don't misjudge my intentions though! I'm all for people looking into whatever they want to. I'm an atheist, but if someone wants to do any kind of research in reincarnation or anything I don't believe in, more power to them. Some areas of science sometimes study things which appear to be a complete waste of time, and then they turn out to be right and we all have to (or at least should) adjust our beliefs accordingly.
I'm just advocating that having a PhD doesn't mean that your work is automatically science, nor does automatically constitute evidence. That does not outright discredit their work, though. I guess I'm arguing semantics, which can be annoying to some but language is important sometimes .
I want to add that I make a point to be modest about most of my beliefs, but I'll admit that I'm not likely to be convinced about the validity of supernatural claims with a youtube video. Nor should anybody.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Bit long for what is just a simple ad-hominem. You just don't like atheists and you are apparently willing go to any lengths to slander the characters of any that are too outspoken. Atleast Dawkins never degenerates into these kinds of personal attacks. Admittedly Hitchens did like personal attacks, but atleast he was funny about it.
How can I not like atheists when I am an atheist?
I do not believe in a personal god......I'm pantheist (like Albert Einstein) which in the words of Dawkins is just "sexed up atheism".
I would never go around telling people that I'm an atheist straight up though because they've got a bad reputation of being immature, name calling, & basing everything around scientific evidence and getting pissed off when someone says they believe in a God whereas I'm the opposite and am open minded & spiritual.
On July 07 2013 07:53 Shiori wrote:
On July 07 2013 07:52 SjPhotoGrapher wrote:
On July 07 2013 06:21 Shiori wrote:
On July 07 2013 06:01 SjPhotoGrapher wrote:
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
In particular:
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
Thank you for proving my point that most atheists will only listen to the evidence that supports their beliefs and ignore the evidence that supports anything that goes against the grain even if it is scientific evidence.
Also some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go.
You have to remember that science itself is founded around the use of the 5 senses to come up with scientific data for something and it does not extend beyond that.
I'm not an atheist, so stop making assumptions.
First you tell me that you have scientific evidence, then you turn around and say "some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go" which, to me, is interesting because I don't understand how anyone could know about these things if they go beyond the senses.
The problem with the guy you linked is that his evidence is methodologically flawed. I don't doubt the man's honesty or anything like that, but if you actually take a look at his research, you can see that it's affected by confirmation bias, and that many of his claims just aren't falsifiable. Furthermore, there aren't any blindness qualifiers for his experiments. I mean, many of the people he interviewed had a relationship with the family of the deceased person who would hypothetically have been reincarnated within the interviewee. That's a pretty huge weakness right there. Secondly, most of his interviews took place years after the fact and amount to nothing more than anecdotes/hearsay. It's a pretty huge stretch to say, as you have, that there is "overwhelming evidence" in support of reincarnation/mediums. This is super-anecdotal evidence at best, and it definitely doesn't conform to accepted standards of scientific methodology.
What's more, from what I can see, scientists actually liked this guy. They thought he was gullible and misguided, sure, but they thought he was an honest guy and a hard worker. So I'm not sure where you're coming from with this idea that scientists are just ignoring the evidence in support of these outlandish paranormal phenomena. They were as gentle as can be with this guy, and his work was widely published/read. It wasn't ignored. It was just criticized for being wrong, lol.
I showed you the scientific evidence. Science still has a long ways to go before it can prove some thing. There has been scientific evidence that supports the claims of those that can speak to some that passed and for reincarnation. Whether you accept this evidence or not is on you but I'd believe in the research from that a DR that dedicated his whole life before accepting some small rebutle from a random person on the internet.
You chose to not accept his evidence. So a lot of atheists like to pick & choose just like bible thumpers when it comes to the evidence.
People with an open mind (like me) see the evidence and it's possibility for it being true. The evidence is actually quite overwhelming and there has been more research done on it than from just that DR....you're just too close minded to look it up as you automatically unconsciously mark it as "false" due to you having a set belief pattern.
Have you read all of his books? No.
Have you looked into the other reincarnation evidence and documentary's? No.
So what makes you think that the few things that you said have not been looked into by the DR that has been conducting research all of his life into reincarnation???
Like I said, current science still has a long ways to go, we can't even cure AID's or Herpes and there is evidence out there supporting people that have lived all of their lives without drinking water or eating food some which have sat and just mediated in a tree for days on end with nothing but again, since you're close minded you would deny this and say that based upon the ignorance of current science it is not able to be confirmed.
Also it may very well possible to go over to other states through the mind in which science can not read into or conduct experiments into but close minded people would deny this.
Modern science/atheism has turned into a religion whether you like it or not....hell there's a religion out there called "Scientology".
Modern science/atheism supports the belief that everything is a mistake and that since we're here once, we will never come back or that and deny's anything spiritual even if there is evidence for it such as the third eye, the possibility of life being a simulation, and so forth.
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Bit long for what is just a simple ad-hominem. You just don't like atheists and you are apparently willing go to any lengths to slander the characters of any that are too outspoken. Atleast Dawkins never degenerates into these kinds of personal attacks. Admittedly Hitchens did like personal attacks, but atleast he was funny about it.
How can I not like atheists when I am an atheist?
I do not believe in a personal god......I'm pantheist (like Albert Einstein) which in the words of Dawkins is just "sexed up atheism".
I would never go around telling people that I'm an atheist straight up though because they've got a bad reputation of being immature, name calling, & basing everything around scientific evidence and getting pissed off when someone says they believe in a God whereas I'm the opposite and am open minded & spiritual.
On July 07 2013 07:53 Shiori wrote:
On July 07 2013 07:52 SjPhotoGrapher wrote:
On July 07 2013 06:21 Shiori wrote:
On July 07 2013 06:01 SjPhotoGrapher wrote:
On July 07 2013 05:46 Shiori wrote: Not that I'm a big fan of Dawkins or Hitchens (the former is is a poor philosopher whereas the latter was actually just irascible about everything, religious or otherwise) but to claim that they have(had) mental illnesses is really offensive (and false).
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
You seem to be prejudice against mental illness.......there's nothing wrong with it and most people suggest from it even if they don't realize it as a modern society pretty much labels anything besides being "normal" as a trait of having a mental illness.
A case example is ADD....not interested in mathematics/school??? Automatically they want to label you with ADD and put you on Ritalin.
That's the reality that we live in.....theres nothing wrong with mental illness I'm just being honest here that both Dawkins & Hitchens suffer(ed) from some sort of mental illness that keeps(ed) them depressed or so fired up to debate against religion and talk so bad about it even to the length of writing nasty books about it and manipulating data to make it appeal to their views.
I have "The God Delusion" and all that I have to say that it's evidence that Dawkins has an inflated ego and definitly some emotional problems....the book was depressing and didn't really teach me anything that I didn't know besides how he basically turned Atheism into a religoion or some would call it a cult (Heck, Matt Dillihunty from The Atheist Experience coined some new term called "Atheism +" and obviously has a lot of hate in his heart a lot with most of these atheism movement leaders.
At least most of the religious people that I see debating them seem to be well grounded, free from most anger, and seem to be happy people.
Even if what they believe in is false I'd rather be like them and be a happy loving person vs some person that has hatred in their hearts and gets pissed off the moment you say you believe in a God in one form or another.
Uh, I suffer from a couple diagnosed (like, by a real psychiatrist) DSM disorders. I'm not prejudiced against people having them, but you obviously are, because you're using them to dismiss the credibility of Dawkins/Hitchens even though you have literally no evidence that either of them has any mental illness. You cannot diagnose someone with a mental illness on the basis of them vehemently opposing religion. You just can't. It doesn't make any sense.
In particular:
How do you know that it's false? Also if you knew anything about psychology you would know that most are alcoholics to hide their mental issues I know this from people that I have known from the past and doing research into psychology myself.
is just an assumption on your part. I could be wrong about Dawkins/Hitchens having a mental illness, but since no psychiatrist has ever diagnosed or even suggested that they have/had any, I'm going to go ahead and say that they don't. Your understanding of mental illness appears to be something like "wow this guy is really angry/emotional; he must have some sort of mental illness." No. Sometimes people just have a cutting rhetorical style. Dawkins in particular comes across as a really friendly guy most of the time unless he's talking about, I don't know, Muslims performing genital mutilation on women. You rarely hear Dawkins/Hitchens get angry about abstract notions like whether God exists or not. They tend to get angry when someone either misrepresents what atheists believe (e.g. the assert that all atheists are nihilists or immoral) or when someone attempts to defend an obvious moral atrocity/unscientific theory masquerading as science. All of these are justifiable reasons to be angry with someone.
The God Delusion is a book of pop philosophy. It's not a work of scholarship. It's written in an appealing style which is deliberately antagonistic in order to be more provocative. Yes, many of the arguments Dawkins presents in that book wouldn't be taken seriously by professional philosophers (although a couple would) and many of them don't even apply to what one might designate "mainstream religious groups" but nevertheless it's completely ridiculous to conclude that Dawkins has "emotional problems" on the basis of reading that book. I'll agree that he has a large ego, but you'll find that pretty much every public figure is arrogant/egotistical in some way (with a few honourable exceptions).
And besides, there are plenty of utterly crazy religious people, but Dawkins/Hitchens, generally speaking, don't debate with people of that ilk because there's no hope of reasoned, civil debate. Say what you will about Dawkins and Hitchens, but they do participate in debates regularly and do follow the rules of those debates without resorting to a barrage of petty name-calling or hysterics like, say, the Westboro Baptist Church does every time someone suffers an aneurysm and allows them to make a televised statement.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
Thank you for proving my point that most atheists will only listen to the evidence that supports their beliefs and ignore the evidence that supports anything that goes against the grain even if it is scientific evidence.
Also some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go.
You have to remember that science itself is founded around the use of the 5 senses to come up with scientific data for something and it does not extend beyond that.
I'm not an atheist, so stop making assumptions.
First you tell me that you have scientific evidence, then you turn around and say "some things go beyond the realms of the 5 (or 6) senses where scientific evidence can not go" which, to me, is interesting because I don't understand how anyone could know about these things if they go beyond the senses.
The problem with the guy you linked is that his evidence is methodologically flawed. I don't doubt the man's honesty or anything like that, but if you actually take a look at his research, you can see that it's affected by confirmation bias, and that many of his claims just aren't falsifiable. Furthermore, there aren't any blindness qualifiers for his experiments. I mean, many of the people he interviewed had a relationship with the family of the deceased person who would hypothetically have been reincarnated within the interviewee. That's a pretty huge weakness right there. Secondly, most of his interviews took place years after the fact and amount to nothing more than anecdotes/hearsay. It's a pretty huge stretch to say, as you have, that there is "overwhelming evidence" in support of reincarnation/mediums. This is super-anecdotal evidence at best, and it definitely doesn't conform to accepted standards of scientific methodology.
What's more, from what I can see, scientists actually liked this guy. They thought he was gullible and misguided, sure, but they thought he was an honest guy and a hard worker. So I'm not sure where you're coming from with this idea that scientists are just ignoring the evidence in support of these outlandish paranormal phenomena. They were as gentle as can be with this guy, and his work was widely published/read. It wasn't ignored. It was just criticized for being wrong, lol.
I showed you the scientific evidence. Science still has a long ways to go before it can prove some thing. There has been scientific evidence that supports the claims of those that can speak to some that passed and for reincarnation. Whether you accept this evidence or not is on you but I'd believe in the research from that a DR that dedicated his whole life before accepting some small rebutle from a random person on the internet.
You showed me some studies. I pointed out that scientists have read these studies (rather than ignoring them, as you claimed). I pointed out that scientists noted serious methodological flaws in these studies that make the conclusion not something we can establish/verify. Furthermore, the evidence lacks a coherent experiment to actually repeat and it fails to provide any sort of physical mechanism by which reincarnation could actually occur.
You chose to not accept his evidence. So a lot of atheists like to pick & choose just like bible thumpers when it comes to the evidence.
I choose not to accept the evidence because there is a better explanation for the data than "reincarnation is true" and that is that the methodology had serious flaws + that the data does not actually establish anything about reincarnation or how it would work to start with.
People with an open mind (like me) see the evidence and it's possibility for it being true. The evidence is actually quite overwhelming and there has been more research done on it than from just that DR....you're just too close minded to look it up as you automatically unconsciously mark it as "false" due to you having a set belief pattern.
It is possible that reincarnation is true; it's just incredibly unlikely given our current scientific knowledge and understanding of reality. Without any compelling reasons to believe that reincarnation is real, we can't say that it's true from the point of view of science. I'm not going to tell you what to believe based on your own intuitions or personal values or faith or what have you. That's totally up to you, and if you find it convincing I can't argue with that. But it definitely isn't scientifically proven.
Have you read all of his books? No.
Tonnes of scientists have reviewed them. Why do I need to read them again?
Have you looked into the other reincarnation evidence and documentary's? No.
I've looked into some of it. The problem is that there's really no way to establish whether reincarnation is true because nobody can really define what it is and because nobody can supply even a hypothetical explanation of how it might actually work. How, for example, does one person transmit themselves imperfectly to another person? On what basis does this occur? What reasons do we have to believe that this occurs that can't be explained by simpler things? How come body Y receives personality X?
So what makes you think that the few things that you said have not been looked into by the DR that has been conducting research all of his life into reincarnation???
I'm sure he was aware of the criticisms, but that doesn't make him correct.
Like I said, current science still has a long ways to go, we can't even cure AID's or Herpes and there is evidence out there supporting people that have lived all of their lives without drinking water or eating food some which have sat and just mediated in a tree for days on end with nothing but again, since you're close minded you would deny this and say that based upon the ignorance of current science it is not able to be confirmed.
Science is completely open to people claiming to be able to survive without food coming forward. It would be hugely beneficial to the human race is we could discover a way to live without food or water for days on end. I don't doubt that there exist people who claim to be able to do these things. But until we have more than someone's personal testimony (which can easily be false, misled, or imprecise) it's dishonest to say it's "confirmed."
Also it may very well possible to go over to other states through the mind in which science can not read into or conduct experiments into but close minded people would deny this.
I don't understand what this means. What are these other states of mind? What is the definition of them, and why is science incapable of touching them? If science is not capable of touching them, then how can we know anything about them, since most of our experiences seem to be based on sensory perception and deductive reasoning?
Modern science/atheism has turned into a religion whether you like it or not....hell there's a religion out there called "Scientology".
Scientology has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism or science; the similarity in name is because both take the Latin word scientia as a root.
Modern science/atheism supports the belief that everything is a mistake and that since we're here once, we will never come back or that and deny's anything spiritual even if there is evidence for it such as the third eye, the possibility of life being a simulation, and so forth.
What is the evidence of the third eye (what is the definition of the third eye?)?
Many scientists are interested in the idea that life is a simulation, and philosophers/scientists have been arguing about it and thinking about it for decades (more, if you count Descartes).
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
How do you explain ghosts then? you can't just say they aren't real because people have seen them all over the world. If they were made up by historians then we'd only expect to see ghosts in the english speaking world but they are seen all over the world even in japan. I mean don't get me wrong I am skeptical of things like god and UFOs but ghosts and polterguyts seem too widespread and physical to be put down purely to imagination.
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
How do you explain ghosts then? you can't just say they aren't real because people have seen them all over the world. If they were made up by historians then we'd only expect to see ghosts in the english speaking world but they are seen all over the world even in japan. I mean don't get me wrong I am skeptical of things like god and UFOs but ghosts and polterguyts seem too widespread and physical to be put down purely to imagination.
I think you can explain them in two ways: firstly, define what a ghost actually is. This usually helps us narrow down whether there are similarities across cultures or whether things that have huge differences are being treated as the same for the sake of advancing a point of view. Secondly, I would argue that it is a universal human phenomenon to fear death and to dwell on those who die, particularly if you're close to them or happen to know who they are (e.g. if they're famous/important). These things, combined with sleep paralysis, auditory hallucinations, optical illusions, and confirmation bias can, I'd argue, explain a great deal of ghost-related cases.
You'd also think that if ghosts were all over the place we'd sooner or later end up with one showing up completely well-defined in front of a crowd of people, or speaking with someone in an obvious way and giving them inexplicable knowledge, or being caught unambiguously on film all the time, since everyone has a camera these days.
I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
On July 08 2013 06:14 BillyGee wrote: I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
How do you detect presences? What is a "presence"? What is a halo?
What is a "figure"? How does it differ from a human being or animal that isn't a ghost? What does it mean for something to be non-physical?
On July 08 2013 06:14 BillyGee wrote: I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
Actually most psychiatrists would say that both suffer from anger problems which is a mental illness in itself.
Dawkins/Hitchens both turned Atheism into a cult or rather a religion. A religion that is based around believing in scientific evidence and nothing else despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for things such as reincarnation and people that are possibly capable of speaking to those that passed.
They pick and choose their evidence to back up their beliefs.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence for reincarnation or mediums. Absolutely none.
How do you explain ghosts then? you can't just say they aren't real because people have seen them all over the world. If they were made up by historians then we'd only expect to see ghosts in the english speaking world but they are seen all over the world even in japan. I mean don't get me wrong I am skeptical of things like god and UFOs but ghosts and polterguyts seem too widespread and physical to be put down purely to imagination.
I think you can explain them in two ways: firstly, define what a ghost actually is. This usually helps us narrow down whether there are similarities across cultures or whether things that have huge differences are being treated as the same for the sake of advancing a point of view. Secondly, I would argue that it is a universal human phenomenon to fear death and to dwell on those who die, particularly if you're close to them or happen to know who they are (e.g. if they're famous/important). These things, combined with sleep paralysis, auditory hallucinations, optical illusions, and confirmation bias can, I'd argue, explain a great deal of ghost-related cases.
You'd also think that if ghosts were all over the place we'd sooner or later end up with one showing up completely well-defined in front of a crowd of people, or speaking with someone in an obvious way and giving them inexplicable knowledge, or being caught unambiguously on film all the time, since everyone has a camera these days.
I think the problem is that those types of phenomena are really hard to capture and replicate in a reliable manner. There are quite a few ghost hunting shows, and some that just investigate the paranormal, in which the participants record videos that stump experts, but since its not proof positive its not good enough.
For example in one of the shows called "Destination Truth" with Josh Gates, one of his crewmembers was trying to communicate with spirits in some abandoned ruin when all of a sudden he felt like he was being choked. Afterwards they put the camera on his throat and saw the sharp red marks indicating pressure. When they brought back this video evidence the experts were confused as to how this could happen naturally or accidentally.
But after that nothing happens. They just leave it at "unusual incident" and move on because they can't really prove anything with what was given according to rigorous scientific standards. But to me, I would question whether such a high level of rigour is truly necessary to at least suspect that something unusual is going on that is paranormal, and the ghost story seems like the simplest option of all the different types of paranormal events.
Maybe I'm gullible but I'm not sure we really *need* triple blind studies repeated ten times to start believing that something weird is going on or that ghosts might be real. It could all be an elaborate hoax of course, but they'd have to be pretty amazing actors!
Making wild hypothesis and pursue that path is okay. But it just remains an unverified hypothesis until you can give tangible evidence of it. Either the original believer will find the necessary evidence or one of his successor will to be accepted as more than a belief.
Hearsay and claims are not evidence.
How do you explain ghosts then? you can't just say they aren't real because people have seen them all over the world. If they were made up by historians then we'd only expect to see ghosts in the english speaking world but they are seen all over the world even in japan. I mean don't get me wrong I am skeptical of things like god and UFOs but ghosts and polterguyts seem too widespread and physical to be put down purely to imagination.
I don't explain ghosts because I don't think they exist. We'll seek an explanation when we will have proof of their existence. Again, hearsay, flashes on a photography, etc, are no proof. Human really like to interpret what they see to fit some of their beliefs. As for ghosts or spirits being wide spread in cultures, how is that even an argument. Death is something present in every culture as far as I know... doesn't take much to spread the idea of souls/spirits. But I'll leave the fine details to a archaeologist for that.
I should probably mention that TV shows prey on the gullible and yeah you should not take anything shown there for granted. Otherwise Chris Angel is a real sorcerer, we have been visited by demons and aliens and Dolphins are the guardian of the earth.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
I believe that if enough people see/experience an event that there is a better explanation than "they're just imagining it."
But...
Just because a person anecdotally sees/experiences an event does not mean that event is real. There being enough evidence for person A does not mean person B is convinced.
On July 08 2013 06:14 BillyGee wrote: I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
There is a major difference between a biologist not seeing a bird in person and someone believing in ghosts. There are actual photographs of birds. There are videos of them in the wild and records of examinations. There is zero evidence of ghosts that passes any sort of scientific rigor at all. I would love to just have no idea what I'm talking about, so if you could refer me to evidence of ghosts that isn't bullshit I'd love to see it.
On July 08 2013 06:14 BillyGee wrote: I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
There is a major difference between a biologist not seeing a bird in person and someone believing in ghosts. There are actual photographs of birds. There are videos of them in the wild and records of examinations. There is zero evidence of ghosts that passes any sort of scientific rigor at all. I would love to just have no idea what I'm talking about, so if you could refer me to evidence of ghosts that isn't bullshit I'd love to see it.
Anecdotal evidence is good enough to form a hypothesis. Though not good enough to prove a hypothesis, saying "oy, they be shit tonne of people who think they've seen ghosts" is a good enough reason to study them.
Remember, there are witness testimonies, "photographs", sensor readings, etc...
Darwin didn't need to "see" evolution to form a theory on it. Nor do we need to "see" evolution to know it happens. But yes, until we see some kind of tangible proof that is repeatable--nothing is proven/disproven.
But to say that there is ZERO evidence is a bit silly. The evidence hasn't lead to anything (yet) but to say it doesn't exist is to keep your head in the sand.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
On July 08 2013 06:14 BillyGee wrote: I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
There is a major difference between a biologist not seeing a bird in person and someone believing in ghosts. There are actual photographs of birds. There are videos of them in the wild and records of examinations. There is zero evidence of ghosts that passes any sort of scientific rigor at all. I would love to just have no idea what I'm talking about, so if you could refer me to evidence of ghosts that isn't bullshit I'd love to see it.
Anecdotal evidence is good enough to form a hypothesis. Though not good enough to prove a hypothesis, saying "oy, they be shit tonne of people who think they've seen ghosts" is a good enough reason to study them.
Remember, there are witness testimonies, "photographs", sensor readings, etc...
Darwin didn't need to "see" evolution to form a theory on it. Nor do we need to "see" evolution to know it happens. But yes, until we see some kind of tangible proof that is repeatable--nothing is proven/disproven.
But to say that there is ZERO evidence is a bit silly. The evidence hasn't lead to anything (yet) but to say it doesn't exist is to keep your head in the sand.
Come on man, I know we seem to disagree about everything but you cannot seriously be defending ghost sightings. A bunch of anecdotal stories, blurry pictures, and "instrument readings" are terrible evidence that could mean anything. Most of those other things are a lot simpler that the convoluted ghost explanation. These things maybe be evidence, but evidence as bad as the evidence for ghosts might as well be no evidence at all. I am not saying it shouldn't be studied, but there has been a lot of studying for a long time and nothing good has come of it yet. Every instance of a ghost has come right out of someones imagination. I would also like to know how a physical instrument can detect a "non-physical" being.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
It's pretty undoubted that we create the notions in our head. The number 4 is just a symbol that represents instances we've observed. (Within its own system math/logic is nice and tight, it's when you apply it to the real world you get into the problems of perfect forms). If there is some "four" out there in "reality", I don't see how we could approach it.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
It's pretty undoubted that we create the notions in our head. The number 4 is just a symbol that represents instances we've observed. (Within its own system math/logic is nice and tight, it's when you apply it to the real world you get into the problems of perfect forms). If there is some "four" out there in "reality", I don't see how we could approach it.
We don't approach it. It's a number. It's immaterial because it's an abstraction. It doesn't exist in any particular place. It's just a rule of reality, much in the same way that the law of non-contradiction is just a rule of reality. The rule of non-contradiction in logic was true even before someone thought of it; it just didn't have a name, but it was still the case that things couldn't have P and not P at the same time.
There doesn't need to actually be a physical manifestation of a perfect form for the abstract concept to refer to something which is not contingent on physicality.
The "number 4" is obviously a symbol which corresponds to some value we're using to describe a particular quality, but that quality is not a symbol; it's just called a symbol in our language and in the language of thought.
On July 08 2013 06:14 BillyGee wrote: I should point out ahead of time that I used to be a paranormal investigator - never a professional mind you, more a student of the field, so I kind of know what I am talking about when it comes to ghosts. I haven't seen one myself but then again many biologists haven't seen certain rare birds but they know they exist. I have detected presences and witnessed halos on many occasions.
A ghost is a non-physical human or animal figure. There are many popular misconceptions out there about ghosts, eg that ghosts are related to the spirit world.
There is a major difference between a biologist not seeing a bird in person and someone believing in ghosts. There are actual photographs of birds. There are videos of them in the wild and records of examinations. There is zero evidence of ghosts that passes any sort of scientific rigor at all. I would love to just have no idea what I'm talking about, so if you could refer me to evidence of ghosts that isn't bullshit I'd love to see it.
Anecdotal evidence is good enough to form a hypothesis. Though not good enough to prove a hypothesis, saying "oy, they be shit tonne of people who think they've seen ghosts" is a good enough reason to study them.
Remember, there are witness testimonies, "photographs", sensor readings, etc...
Darwin didn't need to "see" evolution to form a theory on it. Nor do we need to "see" evolution to know it happens. But yes, until we see some kind of tangible proof that is repeatable--nothing is proven/disproven.
But to say that there is ZERO evidence is a bit silly. The evidence hasn't lead to anything (yet) but to say it doesn't exist is to keep your head in the sand.
Come on man, I know we seem to disagree about everything but you cannot seriously be defending ghost sightings. A bunch of anecdotal stories, blurry pictures, and "instrument readings" are terrible evidence that could mean anything. Most of those other things are a lot simpler that the convoluted ghost explanation. These things maybe be evidence, but evidence as bad as the evidence for ghosts might as well be no evidence at all. I am not saying it shouldn't be studied, but there has been a lot of studying for a long time and nothing good has come of it yet. Every instance of a ghost has come right out of someones imagination. I would also like to know how a physical instrument can detect a "non-physical" being.
I'm not disagreeing about your disbelief in ghosts. I'm disagreeing with the reason you make for not believing in them.
Saying you don't like the evidence is silly--evidence is simply that, evidence.
I dislike the lack of results. My problem is not that some dude in a creaky house has some kind of doodad that detects whatever--my problem is their lack of findings. Maybe someday they'll figure out how to measure it, maybe they never will. Saying their evidence doesn't count because its not the evidence you yourself would be studying is closed minded.
I might think that some blurry photograph is insufficient evidence; but blurry pictures is all a lot of astronomers get a lot of the times. Researchers don't get to cherry pick what counts as evidence and what doesn't. They take what is measurable and study it. And if all you have is blurry pictures and bad testimony--then that's what you run with.
You and I *think* it won't amount to much; much like most research leads don't amount to much. I might think him a sucker for believing some dude who might or might not be lying. But I don't want to say his passion for research and knowledge I meaningless just because I dislike his methods.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
ahh another thread disguised as religion bashing. op, you were quite sneaky in this one, but it was blatantly obvious the direction it was heading. for all those who partake in such behavior, i'd say, you should probably get yourself checked out if you feel so overly zealous in another's beliefs that have no relation to you. the fact it evokes this emotional rage online out of you, is laughable. i don't personally partake in any side, as i will not argue a meaningless cause. what i will say is, there are alot of great varying view points on both sides by other posters who aren't the op. At the end of the day my answer is, i see no point in attacking another human being for what he believes is right, and his attempts to share what he thinks is truth. i'd say the deeper problem does not lie in religion vs science, i would say it's the interpretation that we make of it. i find such labels silly. most people take such course of thinking as taking sides, and then defining their life on it and put themselves in a box. rather than simple truth seekers who may or may not agree to varying view points in science that hold water at the current time which they believe is right. america has become a culture of defining themselves as believers or non believers, and then defining themselves through their sexuality. it's a joke. human relationships (which we all need, but we evolved and survived as a tribe) should be more about sharing and attemtping to find connection within that medium, but yet we've become a culture the opposite of such in which we are trained to find differences.
irrelevant to the issue of religion, here are some things i'd like to address that may not be obvious to all.
alot of so called "research" that's supposed to be testimony, and evidence is biased. there are also alot of "new agey" guru's of every industry who misinterpret or read the conclusions differently of the research. if you want to tackle an issue, here's one that's just as popular and widely accepted within the past i'd say decade? gays. the evidence for being gay is rather feasible. the common argument most will hear when challenged is, "well animals do it, a certain species, and within a good amount of species that partake in gay behavior" now at first glance, most will simply accept this. whats misleading here is that this is biased research, which is simply nitpicking and looking for that one behavior and justifying their own actions. if we were to adhere to the same method, we could also justify rape, abandonment of children, eating your own children, thievery, genocide, pedophilia, only to name a few that "animals partake in" some of them more than equally common as being gay. so where does the truth lie? alot of the so called "truths" that most used blindly as evidence is widely accepted due more to social norms and i'd argue, most posters who fear of disagreeing with the majority and to be painted in a negative light due to a unpopular belief of such.
this is not only true of psychology, but has been also for cancer research. most cancer research in the last 50 years were done very poorley where the conclusions made were from situations that cannot be recreated easily, if that. most people here argue science like it's dogma, which is very unscientific. the real truth of science isn't as most spout, that we'll eventually be right, therefore you're wrong. it's you can never truly prove something, but what you can do is disprove all the possibilities that might argue the contrary until you fall upon 1 thing that can be possibly a solution. what most hold as truths now are only within the confines and limits of physical reality. most reading that answer, would say well, we only have those laws. i'd say no, space and the sea has shown us different laws apply to different species and we are simply attempting to operate on what we somewhat know of our reality on the ground. therefore you cannot truly prove anything, if anyone has read research, conclusions and truths can often times be interpreted 50/50 more so than people think.
quality of many research is also dependent on how strictly they can isolate variables obviously, but many are very sloppy at doing so thus leading to in accurate results and conclusions which are taken as truths. the quality of researches also depends on how much fund that is required to come to a decisive conclusion, and also how long it takes. on another note, billions upon billions of dollars have been poured into "research charities" on cancer, and yet there new results everyday, but how many of those results have you read in the past year have actually made it into being patented treatments? none.
So my argument would be, if we want to delve into the deep areas in which we should question that involves life, like science and religion, let's also tackle the medical institutes has allocated a large portion of of our economy, and why innovation and treatment is sparse despite supposedly quality research. it is not hard to look at the entertainment industry and the technological innovations that pop out every month and compare that to the speed of the progress in technology in the medical fields, one is 1000x quicker in development and output compared to the other. summary? there are outrages poured upon religion vs science, but none are looking in the backyard, in those who do endorse science. i'd say the better cause to cause a commotion in are the very people who take your money, or the institutions you donate it to, if you do / the causes you support, religion and science alike. as there are many fingers that point flaws in religion, there aren't enough pointing at the institutes, academics and industries i would assume most of us partake in. for every corrupt thing that may happen in the vatican, which recently did happen, there is just as common corruption in every institute but there is no outburst. i'm just saying, there's bias in the commotion we make, that is largely influenced by a social construct, your own opinion may not be your own, but your agreement to a majority reaction by default, it is no different that a man believes another man who has written history, than a man who believes a professor who he's paid to attend a university. i would say half of you would not be as confident in the answers you have posted, had you read the research into the conclusions yourselves and came upon your own conclusions objectively.
It started off with "what's is love? Baby don't hurt me (if you're in fact real and not a non-physical construct produced by chemicals in my head trying to make me breed and care for my progeny)" don't hurt me, no more", to "I am arbitrarily euphoric, not because of some phony gods blessing, but because dat brain electricity" to "no bro we NEED ghost busters" to staking Count Von Count through his cottony heart. I don't know whether the thread should be closed or allowed to reach its logical conclusion, whether turtle power is a social construct, or heroes in a half shell are a byproduct of evolution telling us to defend ourselves against the apex ninja predators.
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
If something is non-physical how can you detect it with physical apparatus?
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
It depends on what you mean by physical apparatus. Is the brain a physical apparatus? Yet it can detect love which is non-physical. Look I am not pretending to have all the answers, the scientific study of the paranormal wouldn't exist if all the answers were already known.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
It doesn't "detect" love, it creates love. It is indeed a physical apparatus.
The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
But its also not a truism in the strictest sense of the word. There is a reason mathematicians still argue about whether or not we simply observe numbers or if we conceive numbers. You seem to think that "fourness" is this object in the world that is either perceived or not perceived; which is different from conceiving "fourness."
To "conceive fourness" would mean that there is an absence of 4 in the world; and hence why we need to create/conceive of it in order to discuss it. To perceive fourness is to see fourness in the world, and to treat it as real because we have observed it.
In the subject of Love, the discussion Billy and Roe had was on whether love is perceived or whether it is conceived. You attempted to suggest that it is similar to the number 4 as if it was a conclusive statement when it isn't. Mathematicians are still arguing over whether numbers are perceived or whether they are conceived.
In other words, does love exist if we were not here to see it as you suggest that 4 is here whether or not there is someone to perceive it.
On July 08 2013 08:48 Shiori wrote: [quote] The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4 or the universe it perceives.
Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
You seem to think that "fourness" is this object in the world that is either perceived or not perceived; which is different from conceiving "fourness."
I definitely do not think that fourness is an object "in the world." It's an abstract object which necessarily exists in all possible worlds, because "fourness' is just a description of a quality of a set which doesn't depend on whether such a set actually exists.
To "conceive fourness" would mean that there is an absence of 4 in the world; and hence why we need to create/conceive of it in order to discuss it.
It depends what you mean by "in the world." There are clearly sets in our world that possess the property of having four elements i.e. they have fourness. But that doesn't imply that fourness is contingent on the existence of sets which have that property.
To perceive fourness is to see fourness in the world, and to treat it as real because we have observed it.
Again, true in a sense, but not in another. Obviously there are instances in which we perceive and conceive of fourness, but I'm talking about the ontological character of fourness.
In the subject of Love, the discussion Billy and Roe had was on whether love is perceived or whether it is conceived. You attempted to suggest that it is similar to the number 4 as if it was a conclusive statement when it isn't. Mathematicians are still arguing over whether numbers are perceived or whether they are conceived.
What I meant was that whether or not fourness is perceive or conceived of, it seemed that Roe was suggesting that love is a sort of chemical, emotional trick that the chemistry of the brain plays on the rational element of the brain. While I don't dispute the physicality of the brain, and so his point of view is (trivially) true, I think that love is a rational decision, not an emotional impulse (the emotional component I would characterize as infatuation).
In other words, does love exist if we were not here to see it as you suggest that 4 is here whether or not there is someone to perceive it.
Love is a property that interpersonal relationships can possess. If all agents (i.e. those capable of forming interpersonal relationships) ceased to exist, the notion of love would still make counterfactual sense, and that's because it's merely a description of a state of affairs and doesn't require the actual realization of that state of affairs to be, strictly speaking, sensible.
As another example, the Pythagorean Theorem is true in Euclidean space even if no human beings are around to think about it. If all thinking creatures were to die, it wouldn't suddenly be the case that right triangles violating the PT would start popping into existence, or square circles, or anything else.
On July 08 2013 09:39 Roe wrote: [quote] Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
You seem to think that "fourness" is this object in the world that is either perceived or not perceived; which is different from conceiving "fourness."
I definitely do not think that fourness is an object "in the world." It's an abstract object which necessarily exists in all possible worlds, because "fourness' is just a description of a quality of a set which doesn't depend on whether such a set actually exists.
To "conceive fourness" would mean that there is an absence of 4 in the world; and hence why we need to create/conceive of it in order to discuss it.
It depends what you mean by "in the world." There are clearly sets in our world that possess the property of having four elements i.e. they have fourness. But that doesn't imply that fourness is contingent on the existence of sets which have that property.
To perceive fourness is to see fourness in the world, and to treat it as real because we have observed it.
Again, true in a sense, but not in another. Obviously there are instances in which we perceive and conceive of fourness, but I'm talking about the ontological character of fourness.
In the subject of Love, the discussion Billy and Roe had was on whether love is perceived or whether it is conceived. You attempted to suggest that it is similar to the number 4 as if it was a conclusive statement when it isn't. Mathematicians are still arguing over whether numbers are perceived or whether they are conceived.
What I meant was that whether or not fourness is perceive or conceived of, it seemed that Roe was suggesting that love is a sort of chemical, emotional trick that the chemistry of the brain plays on the rational element of the brain. While I don't dispute the physicality of the brain, and so his point of view is (trivially) true, I think that love is a rational decision, not an emotional impulse (the emotional component I would characterize as infatuation).
In other words, does love exist if we were not here to see it as you suggest that 4 is here whether or not there is someone to perceive it.
Love is a property that interpersonal relationships can possess. If all agents (i.e. those capable of forming interpersonal relationships) ceased to exist, the notion of love would still make counterfactual sense, and that's because it's merely a description of a state of affairs and doesn't require the actual realization of that state of affairs to be, strictly speaking, sensible.
As another example, the Pythagorean Theorem is true in Euclidean space even if no human beings are around to think about it. If all thinking creatures were to die, it wouldn't suddenly be the case that right triangles violating the PT would start popping into existence, or square circles, or anything else.
Gotcha, that makes sense. In the end, its all very "tree falls in the woods with no one to hear it" type deal.
On July 08 2013 09:44 Shiori wrote: [quote] The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
You seem to think that "fourness" is this object in the world that is either perceived or not perceived; which is different from conceiving "fourness."
I definitely do not think that fourness is an object "in the world." It's an abstract object which necessarily exists in all possible worlds, because "fourness' is just a description of a quality of a set which doesn't depend on whether such a set actually exists.
To "conceive fourness" would mean that there is an absence of 4 in the world; and hence why we need to create/conceive of it in order to discuss it.
It depends what you mean by "in the world." There are clearly sets in our world that possess the property of having four elements i.e. they have fourness. But that doesn't imply that fourness is contingent on the existence of sets which have that property.
To perceive fourness is to see fourness in the world, and to treat it as real because we have observed it.
Again, true in a sense, but not in another. Obviously there are instances in which we perceive and conceive of fourness, but I'm talking about the ontological character of fourness.
In the subject of Love, the discussion Billy and Roe had was on whether love is perceived or whether it is conceived. You attempted to suggest that it is similar to the number 4 as if it was a conclusive statement when it isn't. Mathematicians are still arguing over whether numbers are perceived or whether they are conceived.
What I meant was that whether or not fourness is perceive or conceived of, it seemed that Roe was suggesting that love is a sort of chemical, emotional trick that the chemistry of the brain plays on the rational element of the brain. While I don't dispute the physicality of the brain, and so his point of view is (trivially) true, I think that love is a rational decision, not an emotional impulse (the emotional component I would characterize as infatuation).
In other words, does love exist if we were not here to see it as you suggest that 4 is here whether or not there is someone to perceive it.
Love is a property that interpersonal relationships can possess. If all agents (i.e. those capable of forming interpersonal relationships) ceased to exist, the notion of love would still make counterfactual sense, and that's because it's merely a description of a state of affairs and doesn't require the actual realization of that state of affairs to be, strictly speaking, sensible.
As another example, the Pythagorean Theorem is true in Euclidean space even if no human beings are around to think about it. If all thinking creatures were to die, it wouldn't suddenly be the case that right triangles violating the PT would start popping into existence, or square circles, or anything else.
Gotcha, that makes sense. In the end, its all very "tree falls in the woods with no one to hear it" type deal.
Indeed (at least that was my perspective). And I was trying to argue the point that both love and '4', and all other ideas are simply notions of our understanding of the world, and thus dependent on the mind (I wasn't really thinking about brain chemistry). I don't think it's possible to know if PT would be true without humans, but I'm probably too deep into empirical waters here.
awareness is of the brain but resides outside it. an analogy: - the environment is the environment (the difference between those (if it exists) would be argued based on faith or induction; it could also be argued that the brain + awareness can create their own environment/projection but would not be consistent with reality.) - the brain is the eyeball, it's biologic - the awareness is the light/photon; the means (a medium) by which the brain perceives/sees/creates said environment.
light reflects of environment and the eye perceives it. || awareness reflects of environment and the brain experiences it. when the eye is damaged, the way the environment is seen changes (myopia for example, causes the environment to be seen somewhat foggy; a mention here, the environment doesn't change, only the eyes perception of it). || different brain affections might lead one to see things foggy but he will still be able to perceive them. when rod and cone degeneration or dysfunction is present, it still allows the eye to detect brightness changes, to perceive shades(to see the light so to speak). || semi dead brains could (or can) perceive awareness. ( || = parallel)
note: don't take the wording at face value, understanding the basic idea is more important then semantics.
On July 08 2013 09:39 Roe wrote: [quote] Not sure what your point is
The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
You seem to think that "fourness" is this object in the world that is either perceived or not perceived; which is different from conceiving "fourness."
I definitely do not think that fourness is an object "in the world." It's an abstract object which necessarily exists in all possible worlds, because "fourness' is just a description of a quality of a set which doesn't depend on whether such a set actually exists.
To "conceive fourness" would mean that there is an absence of 4 in the world; and hence why we need to create/conceive of it in order to discuss it.
It depends what you mean by "in the world." There are clearly sets in our world that possess the property of having four elements i.e. they have fourness. But that doesn't imply that fourness is contingent on the existence of sets which have that property.
To perceive fourness is to see fourness in the world, and to treat it as real because we have observed it.
Again, true in a sense, but not in another. Obviously there are instances in which we perceive and conceive of fourness, but I'm talking about the ontological character of fourness.
In the subject of Love, the discussion Billy and Roe had was on whether love is perceived or whether it is conceived. You attempted to suggest that it is similar to the number 4 as if it was a conclusive statement when it isn't. Mathematicians are still arguing over whether numbers are perceived or whether they are conceived.
What I meant was that whether or not fourness is perceive or conceived of, it seemed that Roe was suggesting that love is a sort of chemical, emotional trick that the chemistry of the brain plays on the rational element of the brain. While I don't dispute the physicality of the brain, and so his point of view is (trivially) true, I think that love is a rational decision, not an emotional impulse (the emotional component I would characterize as infatuation).
In other words, does love exist if we were not here to see it as you suggest that 4 is here whether or not there is someone to perceive it.
Love is a property that interpersonal relationships can possess. If all agents (i.e. those capable of forming interpersonal relationships) ceased to exist, the notion of love would still make counterfactual sense, and that's because it's merely a description of a state of affairs and doesn't require the actual realization of that state of affairs to be, strictly speaking, sensible.
As another example, the Pythagorean Theorem is true in Euclidean space even if no human beings are around to think about it. If all thinking creatures were to die, it wouldn't suddenly be the case that right triangles violating the PT would start popping into existence, or square circles, or anything else.
Then again wouldn't that mean that anything that could ever be conceived of would 'exist' in that sense. That's quite a densely populated world. Understanding love as an abstract concept leaves much to be accounted for I would suggest and that's why I think the analogy with mathematical constructs fails. There is no feeling 'fourness' for instance. Surely if both exist they do exist in substantially different ways. Would you agree?
On July 02 2013 07:34 kwantumszuperpozishn wrote: The good thing about being human is that we are intelligent and that our knowledge keeps increasing that we are outdating and rejecting previous ideas and beliefs that seemed to adequately explain natural and social phenomena when human knowledge was not yet fully developed.
Chief among this is religion. It is getting the most heat because among other human institutions, it has been the most influential and even abusive and continues to control and influence some human relations. If, then, we are willing to go down this path and be consistent about it, why not go the full extent and interrogate all other abstract and arbitrary human constructs?
Chief among this is love. Outside religion, love seems the one concept which people would cling to and defend their lives. If we declare love just as one of the arbitrary human concepts, then we would eliminate many of the old fashioned and nonsense things that we tie ourselves into as humans - dating, marriage, long term relationship, etc. Think about it, if we start to reject the idea of love, and treat it as nothing more than socially reinforced concept that we evolved, and instead just have a transactional relationship in the sense that is built around trust, companionship, friendship, communication, etc, then we can free ourselves from the tyranny of love.
What do you think? Why do we still value these other arbitrary constructs?
All religions starts on the basis of a witness testifying a hallucination and writing it down in record for people throughout history to know this truth.
every fact starts on the basis of a perception of a subjected reality, and writing it down in record for people to know the truth.
why is there something, when there could have been nothing? no facts for example.
all facts have a certain amount of faith, even things like 1+1=2.
On July 08 2013 09:44 Shiori wrote: [quote] The number 4 is non-physical. It is an abstraction that would exist whether or not entities were around to think about it. It existed before the human race ever did, and before the Earth did. Similarly, all of our empirical research about the brain being a physical object is itself perceived (i.e. "created") by the brain which renders your entire line of argument circular.
I think the brain is a physical apparatus, but to say that the brain "creates" love is like saying that the brain "creates" the number 4. It doesn't; it just comprehends/experiences/apprehends those things.
(I mean love as a noun, not the oxytocin release).
The empirical nature of 4 is technically still under contention.
Some mathematicians say we simply perceive of the concept of 4 as a way to communicate ideas and concepts.
Other mathematicians say that 4 is a real thing that is present in the world whether or not someone sees it.
Its not really a slam dunk kind of thing....
It doesn't really matter. The number four refers to some abstraction. Whether or not "fourness" actually exists physically doesn't really matter, because it clearly has absolutely no definitional attachment to physicality anymore than logic itself has any confinement to physicality (i.e. that is why logic would be true in all possible worlds).
I don't think you realize that you're agreeing with him....
The clutch of the argument is asking whether a number is something we observe (4 balls) or something we conceive (balls, there are 4 of them)
If the number is not hinged on reality--then we are arbitrarily conceiving it. If the number is hinged on reality--then we are merely observing its existence.
He's saying we conceive of the concept of the number 4 and we use that concept to talk about the number. What you initially said was that 4 hinged on reality, as in 4 is something out there to find and if we never found more than 3 of anything we would never have conceived of the number 4.
The number 4 is not "hinged" on reality. It's a property that hypothetical sets can possess. Whether or not there actually exist sets with such a property doesn't matter. The universe could end tomorrow and "fourness" would still make sense from the point of view of logical construction of predicates that subjects can or can't possess...
Yes, it's a logical construct. Which is why Roe said the brain "creates" love and you said that the brain "creates" the number 4. Because to the two of you, both "love" and "4" are conceived ideas and not perceived objects. They are deduced by logic, and created by the mind, not simply observed and documented.
I was attempting to draw an analogy by absurdity. The brain no more creates love than it creates the number 4. Whether or not any mind had thought of it, the predicate to which "fourness" refers would still be a coherent possible predicate.
You seem to think that "fourness" is this object in the world that is either perceived or not perceived; which is different from conceiving "fourness."
I definitely do not think that fourness is an object "in the world." It's an abstract object which necessarily exists in all possible worlds, because "fourness' is just a description of a quality of a set which doesn't depend on whether such a set actually exists.
To "conceive fourness" would mean that there is an absence of 4 in the world; and hence why we need to create/conceive of it in order to discuss it.
It depends what you mean by "in the world." There are clearly sets in our world that possess the property of having four elements i.e. they have fourness. But that doesn't imply that fourness is contingent on the existence of sets which have that property.
To perceive fourness is to see fourness in the world, and to treat it as real because we have observed it.
Again, true in a sense, but not in another. Obviously there are instances in which we perceive and conceive of fourness, but I'm talking about the ontological character of fourness.
In the subject of Love, the discussion Billy and Roe had was on whether love is perceived or whether it is conceived. You attempted to suggest that it is similar to the number 4 as if it was a conclusive statement when it isn't. Mathematicians are still arguing over whether numbers are perceived or whether they are conceived.
What I meant was that whether or not fourness is perceive or conceived of, it seemed that Roe was suggesting that love is a sort of chemical, emotional trick that the chemistry of the brain plays on the rational element of the brain. While I don't dispute the physicality of the brain, and so his point of view is (trivially) true, I think that love is a rational decision, not an emotional impulse (the emotional component I would characterize as infatuation).
In other words, does love exist if we were not here to see it as you suggest that 4 is here whether or not there is someone to perceive it.
Love is a property that interpersonal relationships can possess. If all agents (i.e. those capable of forming interpersonal relationships) ceased to exist, the notion of love would still make counterfactual sense, and that's because it's merely a description of a state of affairs and doesn't require the actual realization of that state of affairs to be, strictly speaking, sensible.
As another example, the Pythagorean Theorem is true in Euclidean space even if no human beings are around to think about it. If all thinking creatures were to die, it wouldn't suddenly be the case that right triangles violating the PT would start popping into existence, or square circles, or anything else.
Then again wouldn't that mean that anything that could ever be conceived of would 'exist' in that sense. That's quite a densely populated world. Understanding love as an abstract concept leaves much to be accounted for I would suggest and that's why I think the analogy with mathematical constructs fails. There is no feeling 'fourness' for instance. Surely if both exist they do exist in substantially different ways. Would you agree?
I think of love in the philosophical sense; the feeling, to me, is just a transitory and emotional thing. What we refer to as "feeling love" doesn't differ in any practical way from infatuation in terms of character; the chief difference is that one of them is characterized as much more intense and important than the other. I'd argue that, in many cases, love is just a term used to describe a persistent and powerful infatuation, rather than any sort of altogether different thing. To me, though, love (properly understood) is not a feeling at all; it's a choice which requires agency, knowledge (i.e. honesty) and determination to uphold.
Of course, I don't expect my definition of love to take in the popular sphere (since it would entail that, aside from death, it is impossible to love someone and stop loving them afterward) but then I don't want it to. I just meant to point out that my understanding of love is a set of conditions which underpin a particular kind of internal decision/volition/resolve and, as such, is just a principle/idealized decision rather than any sort of feeling.
Also, I don't want to debate about the definition of love, haha. I just wanted to show how my definition of it is consistent with what I stated earlier.
On July 09 2013 17:19 xM(Z wrote: awareness is of the brain but resides outside it. an analogy: - the environment is the environment (the difference between those (if it exists) would be argued based on faith or induction; it could also be argued that the brain + awareness can create their own environment/projection but would not be consistent with reality.) - the brain is the eyeball, it's biologic - the awareness is the light/photon; the means (a medium) by which the brain perceives/sees/creates said environment.
light reflects of environment and the eye perceives it. || awareness reflects of environment and the brain experiences it. when the eye is damaged, the way the environment is seen changes (myopia for example, causes the environment to be seen somewhat foggy; a mention here, the environment doesn't change, only the eyes perception of it). || different brain affections might lead one to see things foggy but he will still be able to perceive them. when rod and cone degeneration or dysfunction is present, it still allows the eye to detect brightness changes, to perceive shades(to see the light so to speak). || semi dead brains could (or can) perceive awareness. ( || = parallel)
note: don't take the wording at face value, understanding the basic idea is more important then semantics.
I have a hard time taking this as anything but nonsensical analogies you made up that sound good. How is "awareness" like a photon entering the eye? Should the "photon" of the brain be the signals from the parts of the body that create the 5 senses?
EPT
no phear!
